Glossary / Examples of Statements

Allegation:An allegation under Metropolitan Police
Department (MPD) guidelines is “a complaint of sexual abuse, that after
preliminary investigation by a member of the Sexual Assault Unit (SAU),”
the SAU determines “lacks the criteria of a sexual abuse offense.”
Examples of cases that the MPD’s Standard Operation Procedures might
consider allegations include cases in which there are inconsistencies that
require follow up, or cases in which the complainant: provides contradictory
statements, had sex but is unsure if a crime occurred, is unresponsive, is too
intoxicated to talk, or is referred from another jurisdiction.

Clearance By Arrest: A law
enforcement agency reports that an offense is cleared by arrest, or solved for
crime reporting purposes, when any of three specific conditions have been met:
that at least one person has been arrested; charged with the commission of the
offense; or turned over to the court for prosecution (whether following arrest,
court summons, or police notice).

Exceptional Clearance: Under
FBI guidelines, an offense may be cleared by exceptional means when elements
beyond the control of law enforcement prevent an offender from being arrested.
To exceptionally clear an offense, the law enforcement agency must have met the
following four conditions: identified the offender; gathered enough evidence to
support an arrest, make a charge, and turn over the offender to the court for
prosecution; identified the offender’s
exact location so that the suspect could be taken into custody immediately; and
encountered a circumstance outside the control of law enforcement that
prohibits the agency from arresting, charging, and prosecuting the offender.
Examples of circumstances that lead to exceptional clearances include: the
death of the offender; the victim’s refusal to cooperate with the
prosecution after the offender has been identified; or the denial of
extradition because the offender committed a crime in another jurisdiction and
is being prosecuted for that offense. At the MPD, cases may also be considered
closed exceptionally if a prosecutor has declined a request for an arrest
warrant for lack of prosecutorial merit. This is also known as an
administrative closure.

Forensic Evidence Kit:
Following a forensic exam, the various swabs and samples collected are placed
in separate envelopes (or tubes) and are labeled, sealed, and put in one large
envelope—the forensic evidence kit (sometimes referred to as a
“rape kit” or Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit).

Forensic Exam: A procedure
conducted by a health professional that usually takes four hours, involving a
head-to-toe examination of the victim’s body, a pelvic exam, and a
collection of biological samples from the victim’s body. Forensic exams
are typically offered to victims who report within up to 96-120 hours of their
assault, though in some circumstances it may be possible to collect evidence
beyond that period.

Miscellaneous Cases: See
Office Information.

MPD: Metropolitan Police
Department. The primary law enforcement agency for the District of Columbia.

Office Information: Under
MPD guidelines, a complaint of sexual abuse can be deemed an office information
after preliminary investigation by a member of the Sexual Assault Unit, when it
involves any of the following: “an arrest of a sex offender in another
jurisdiction; a report of an offense that occurred in another jurisdiction
(information that can possibly be used in the future); sexual activity that is
not a crime; and no crime was deemed to have occurred.” Once a complaint
is classified as “office information,” no further investigation is
conducted or required. Police sometimes further classify these cases as
“miscellaneous” or “sick [or injured] person to hospital,”
but they still fall under the general broad category of cases that are not
investigated but documented only for “office information” purposes.

OVS: Office of Victim
Services, in the Executive Office of the Mayor of the District of Columbia. The
OVS oversees the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program at Washington
Hospital Center—the designated hospital for care of adult sexual assault
victims in the District.

PD-251s: The MPD’s
incident/offense reports, which the responding officer or detective is supposed
to take any time a crime complaint is made.

Rape Kit: See Forensic
Evidence Kit.

SANE: Sexual Assault Nurse
Examiner. According to the MPD, the SANE program in D.C. “provides
compassionate and timely medical care available twenty-four (24) hours a day to
adult sexual assault victims (eighteen (18) years of age or older) during
forensic examinations while ensuring that the evidence is properly collected
and preserved. Nurses who conduct the examinations under the program have
received specialized training to prepare them to perform forensic examinations
in sexual assault cases, to serve as expert witnesses in court cases, and to
understand the emotional and psychological impact of sexual assault on victims.”[1]

SART (or SARRT): Sexual
Assault Response Team (or Sexual Assault Response and Resource Team). A
community based approach in which public and private agencies work together to
respond to cases of sexual assault. In Washington D.C., the SART team includes
representatives from Washington Hospital Center, the US Attorney’s
Office, the MPD’s Sexual Assault Unit, the Office of Victim Services, the
US Park Police, and the D.C. Rape Crisis Center.

SAU: Sexual (or Sex) Assault
Unit. This is the unit within the MPD that is charged with investigating all
sexual offenses within the District of Columbia involving adult victims (age 18
and over). It includes “cold case” sexual assault unit detectives.[2]
The Sex Offender Registry Unit also falls under the Sexual Assault Unit.

Sexual Assault Evidence Collection
Kit: According to the MPD, “an evidence collection kit used to
obtain evidence from a sexual assault victim.”[3]
See Forensic Evidence Kit

SOP: Standard Operating
Procedures for the Sexual Assault Unit. These are the MPD’s guidelines
for the investigation of sexual assaults.

UCR: Uniform Crime Report. A
program within the FBI that collects, publishes, and archives national crime
statistics.

Unfounding: This occurs when
an investigation reveals that no offense occurred, nor was attempted. Under the
FBI guidelines, a case can only be “unfounded” if it is
“determined through investigation to be false or baseless. In other
words, no crime occurred.” For a case to be considered officially
“unfounded” at the MPD, a detective is supposed to prepare a written
report, which must be approved by a supervisor.

VAWA: Violence Against Women
Act, originally passed by Congress in 1994 to enhance the investigation and
prosecution of violent crimes against women. Under VAWA, victims of sexual
assault treated at the SANE center are not required to speak with law
enforcement.

Examples of Statements
that Human Rights Watch Heard or Reviewed about the Metropolitan Police
Department’s Handling of Sexual Assault Cases in the District of Columbia

By failing to classify the crime committed against me as an
attempted rape or sexual assault, by ignoring my account of the story, you
condemn me to a life where I mistrust the police, abandon any faith I possessed
in the criminal justice system, and you have caused me more victimization than
the actual perpetrator of the crime committed against me. Moreover, you fail
the community you have sworn to protect… —Letter from Eleanor G.,
survivor of a 2011 attempted sexual assault, to MPD Chief Cathy Lanier, October
4, 2011

Reporting to the police was far more traumatizing than the
rape itself. —Susan D. (pseudonym), describing
interaction with the MPD in March 2011

[The detectives] told me that they did not want to waste
their time with me … that no one was going to believe my report and that
he didn’t even want to file it…. When I called to get the police
report number [the detective] told me it was a ‘miscellaneous’
report…. This is not ‘miscellaneous’ THIS IS RAPE! —Maya T. (pseudonym), complaint form, MPD Office of
Police Complaints, May 9, 2011

They just didn’t listen to me, they made me feel
completely ashamed of myself, they made me feel like I was lying or like I was
too stupid to understand what happened to me, that I was trying to make something
a big deal that wasn’t that big of a deal. —Eleanor G., describing
her interaction with the MPD in 2011

It tore me up that he did not believe me and he made it
clear to me that he didn't believe me. Traumatized is the word that I felt from
the investigator, in some ways, it was worse than the event itself. —Shelly G. (pseudonym),
describing her experience with an MPD detective in October 2009

To hear him tell me he didn’t believe me was a slap
in my face. It just knocked me down, it was a punch in my stomach. It just took
the air right out of me. And where do you go from there when the policeman tells
you he doesn’t believe you? —Shelly G. (pseudonym), describing
her interaction with an MPD detective in October 2009

The detective was in the room with the interpreter, and two
other female officers and after 40 min, the survivor was literally hysterical …
the nurses and I could hear it from outside the room … she was sobbing
and yelling…. We interrupted and the detective told us ‘we’ll
be done when I say we’re done.’ Two min later, they walked out of
the room … the detective told me there would be no case and told me to go
see her. —Email from a Rape Crisis
Center advocate, forwarded to the D.C. Office of Victim Services at the
Mayor’s Office, April 2009

I think that filing the report was just as traumatic as the
crime, if not more…. Is it common place for the police to put blame on
the sexual assault victims and then completely ignore them? —Complaint form, MPD
Office of Police Complaints, November 12, 2009

Investigators serve as prosecutor, judge, and jury and stop
the process before it begins. —Experienced community
service provider to sexual assault victims, Washington, D.C., February 16, 2011

For a sexual assault survivor who has already experienced
an intense violation, to have your governmental system essentially say to you,
“This didn’t happen, or if it did happen it doesn’t really
count,” is devastating. —Denise Snyder, D.C. Rape
Crisis Center, quoted in “Washington City Paper,” April 9, 2010

I found out you dealt with her about 4 am Friday or
Saturday morning … and she chose not to make a report. Something about a
gang bang and being intoxicated…. Anyway, I think it was just an OI
[Office Information]. However, she now feels differently and wishes to make a
report…. She says her phone isn’t working but she can be reached ...
Sorry, BUT IT IS WHAT IT IS!!!!!!! —Note from one MPD detective
to another, contained in an investigative file from 2009 reviewed by Human
Rights Watch

How can you not remember? How can we believe you? —Witness, reporting a
statement made by an MPD detective to a victim, who reported being assaulted by
a stranger after going to a bar but could not remember the bar’s name

You shouldn’t have been outside. This is what happens
at two in the morning. What do you expect? —A member of the medical
staff, reporting a statement made by an MPD detective to an 18-year-old runaway
who was assaulted at night

Well, she could have fallen on rocks and may not have had
panties on. Also what kind of girl is in a room with five guys? —Nurse, describing the
response of a detective to a patient who was found unconscious in a hotel room
with five men in 2010 with severe tears to her vagina and rectum that required
emergency surgery

You are only doing this to get immigration status, aren’t
you? —Lawyers’ account
of what an MPD detective told his client when she reported being kidnapped and
sexually assaulted repeatedly overnight in early 2011

Summary

Sexual assault is all too common across the United States.
An estimated one in five women in the United States is a victim of rape or
attempted rape in her lifetime. However, victims who report to law enforcement
may have very different experiences depending on where they live. Studies indicate
that nationwide less than 20 percent of rape or sexual assault victims reported
incidents to the police in 2007.[4] Many
sexual assault survivors choose not to seek help out of fear that authorities
will mistreat or not believe them, or that nothing will happen to their case.
Unfortunately, this concern can be well founded. This report focuses on police
response to sexual assault in the District of Columbia. The story of Susan D.
is not uncommon.

In the spring of 2011, Susan D., a fresh-faced US government
employee in her thirties, was raped by a man she met on an internet dating site.
Deeply shocked, she could not sleep for two days. On the third day, she finally
summoned the courage to go to the hospital for a forensic exam—a four-hour
procedure involving a pelvic exam and extensive collection of evidence from her
body.

At Washington Hospital Center (WHC), where she went for the
exam, Susan met a female detective from the Sexual Assault Unit (SAU) of the
Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)—one of the 10 largest local police
agencies in the United States and the primary law enforcement agency for the
District of Columbia. The detective insisted that Susan talk to her before speaking
to a rape crisis center advocate (as Susan had requested), and before having an
exam. Shaking and shocked, Susan agreed.[5]

For the next three hours, the detective questioned Susan,
interrupting her frequently in a manner—as Susan saw it—to
discourage her from reporting the assault and belittle her experience. For
example, the detective interrupted Susan to say that what she had described was
“not a crime,” to assert that she was herself raped twice, and to imply
that Susan should consider how she would ruin her assailant’s life if she
filed a report. The detective later told a nurse she thought Susan did not need
a forensic exam, although the nurse did in fact administer one.

Susan later waited in vain for police to process the crime
scene and collect her clothes for evidence. After an investigator hired by her
assailant made threatening calls, Susan tried three times to reach the
detective assigned to her case but never heard back and was unable to transfer
her case to another detective. After six weeks, the police closed Susan’s
case without prosecution. In the following months, Susan was diagnosed with
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which she believes was partly due to her
contact with the MPD. “Reporting to the police was far more traumatizing
than the rape itself,” she said.

***

This Report

This report focuses on the District of Columbia’s
Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), its recording and investigation of sexual
abuse cases, and the experience of sexual abuse survivors who sought MPD
assistance. Our investigation provides strong evidence that, between October 2008
and September 2011, the MPD failed to document or investigate many complaints
of sexual assault in D.C. Furthermore, in some cases that Human Rights Watch
documented, police re-victimized survivors by treating them callously and
skeptically, discouraged sexual assault survivors from reporting their assault
or getting a forensic exam, and in some instances threatened them with
prosecution for false reporting.

Our findings are based on extensive data analysis, documents
from four government agencies, and more than 150 interviews.

The data indicates that in several cases, survivors who reported
sexual assaults to the police never had their case documented, and others saw
their cases languish when officers apparently determined that their cases were not
worth pursuing before conducting an effective investigation.

The problems we documented in the MPD’s response to
sexual assault do not appear to result from official MPD policy. On the
contrary, the MPD has long had policies that, if effectively implemented,
should have led to better outcomes. Rather, the key problem appears to be practices
within the MPD that, during the period we examined, have been inconsistent with
departmental policy and resulted in misclassified or undocumented cases. Inadequate
training on how to handle sexual assault cases would also appear to be a
contributing factor.

The MPD was made aware of many of these problems in the
course of a 2008 civil lawsuit brought by a victim whose case was not
investigated. In depositions, several MPD members testified that a significant
number of sexual assault cases were not documented at the instruction of SAU
detectives, despite official policy requiring all sexual assault complaints to
be documented in an incident report. According to MPD Chief Cathy Lanier, the
MPD implemented reforms following the lawsuit. Yet the Human Rights Watch
research in this report indicates that problematic practices continued through
2011.

The mere adoption of new policies or training alone is not
likely to lead to meaningful change of what seem to be deeply rooted attitudes
within the department that have long been inconsistent with official policy. To
really address this problem, the first step MPD leadership should take is to
acknowledge its existence and commit to changing the practice by: (1) holding
officers who do not document or investigate cases to account; (2) creating a
safe and responsive environment for victims or observers of improper treatment
to make complaints; (3) responding seriously to complaints; and (4) doing so
transparently, with external oversight.

The failure of the MPD to thoroughly investigate all sexual
assault cases has potentially devastating consequences for sexual assault victims
and for public confidence in law enforcement; and violates the US’s
obligation under international human rights standards, as well as official MPD
policies governing adult sexual assault investigations. It also means that
assailants—who may commit multiple offenses before being caught and
imprisoned—may be neither investigated nor prosecuted.

Not all detectives in the MPD’s Sexual Assault Unit
(SAU) are insensitive to victims: several people interviewed for this report
told Human Rights Watch about a number of good detectives in the SAU who
demonstrate an appropriate attitude toward these crimes. Nor is evidence of
police mishandling of sexual assault cases unique to D.C. Investigations in
recent years have revealed misclassification or improper closing of sexual
assault cases and forensic exam (or “rape kit”) backlogs in a
number of police departments across the country. Human Rights Watch has
previously documented rape kit backlogs in Illinois and the Los Angeles area.

However, the MPD practices documented in this report contrast
sharply with effective police responses to sexual assault in other US cities
cited here.

To its credit, the MPD has recently taken some important
steps to address the problems we document here. In response to correspondence
and discussions with Human Rights Watch in 2012, the MPD has adopted a number
of our recommendations, though it will take time to see whether there is
consistent enforcement of changes in practice. Nonetheless, as we describe
below, there is more the MPD and other government agencies need to do to ensure
that the MPD provides an effective and appropriate response to sexual assault
in the District of Columbia.

Sexual assault remains the most underreported violent crime
in the United States, partly because victims fear that authorities will not
believe them and that they will be re-traumatized if they report their assault.
Government officials need to ensure that these fears are not realized.

Research

For this report, Human Rights Watch chose to focus on the
District of Columbia because of the unusually low number of sexual assaults it reported
to the FBI, as well as significantly higher than average MPD rates of “clearing”
sexual assault cases than those for comparably sized cities. Low reporting
rates or high clearance rates may indicate cases are being “disposed”
of improperly.[6] In
addition, a lawsuit about MPD’s inappropriate handling of a sexual
assault case in December 2006 and evidence and experience of multiple observers
since then suggested that MPD practices would be worth examining.

As part of its investigation, Human Rights Watch conducted over
150 interviews and reviewed numerous documents produced by the MPD and other
government agencies. These include the Office of Victim Services (OVS) in the Mayor’s
Office, which oversees the program for sexual assault victims at Washington
Hospital Center (WHC)—the designated hospital for care of adult sexual
assault victims in the District.

After refusing to provide investigative files for 16 months,
the MPD agreed to allow Human Rights Watch access to its internal database in
settlement of a lawsuit Human Rights Watch brought in December 2011 to compel
disclosure of documents under D.C.’s Freedom of Information Act. As a
result, Human Rights Watch was able to review investigative files for over 250
cases at the MPD’s offices in August 2012.

To better understand what reforms might be possible in
Washington, D.C., Human Rights Watch also reviewed a range of policies and
interviewed dozens of stakeholders about reforms undertaken in cities that have
improved their investigations of sexual assault crimes: Austin, Philadelphia,
Kansas City, and Grand Rapids. We also consulted 14 national experts on sex
crime investigation and prosecution, reviewed International Association of
Chiefs of Police model procedures, training material, and the Operations Manual
for the San Diego Police Department’s Sex Crimes Unit, which is well regarded.

Main Findings

Failure to Document and
Investigate

From 2008 through September of 2011, MPD officers used a
variety of mechanisms to effectively shut down investigations—often
before they even got started—of cases they did not deem credible. Human
Rights Watch’s review of data, agency documents, and police investigative
files corroborates the impressions of many victims, community advocates, and
witnesses who told us that the MPD often closed cases without meaningful investigation.

As described further below, we documented the following
practices that undermined the successful investigation of sexual assault cases
in the District of Columbia:

MPD
officers did not document many cases, as is demonstrated by the fact that no
incident report exists for a substantial number of cases recorded by Washington
Hospital Center as having been reported to police, nor were these cases located
in the police database.

MPD
officers classified several cases that appear to present the elements of
serious sexual assaults as for “office information only” or
“miscellaneous” cases. In effect, according to SAU guidelines, this
means that they do not pursue the investigation further.

In
some cases, MPD officers classified what appeared to be serious sex abuse cases
as a non-sex offense or as a misdemeanor, minimizing the victim’s
experience and also potentially denying the victim access to support services
from Victim Services within the MPD.

In
several cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch that the MPD did document, the MPD
presented arrest warrant requests to prosecutors based on incomplete
investigations. As a result, prosecutors rejected a large number of these
requests as “weak” cases. Detectives then closed the cases and
recorded them as “exceptionally cleared” even though it appears
they never fully investigated them.

Missing Cases

Two witnesses informed Human Rights Watch in early 2011 that
when they attempted to follow up with the MPD about sexual assault reports,
they found that many of the cases did not have a case number assigned to them and
did not appear to be under active investigation. Based on this information, Human
Rights Watch compared Washington Hospital Center records of victims who had a
forensic exam and reported their assault to the MPD between October 2008 and
September 2011 to MPD incident reports (known as PD-251s) relating to sexual
assault complaints from the same period.[7] Our
analysis excluded 311 victims who had a forensic exam but chose not to report
to the police, or who reported to other police departments.[8]

According to the MPD policy since
2000, all victims who report a sexual assault to the MPD should have an
incident report, known as a PD-251, documenting the complaint and assigning it
a case number.[9] If no PD-251 is prepared, the reported assault will
not be investigated as the necessary step to open an investigation has not been
initiated. The Washington Area Criminal Intelligence Information System
(WACIIS) database maintained by the police department may contain information
about calls received by the MPD on sexual assaults. But, an entry in WACIIS
does not mean that an investigation has been opened. For practical, investigative
purposes, if there is no PD-251, it means that no official record of the
assault exists in the MPD.[10] As one police source put it, “No PD-251, no
investigation.”[11] When asked if an investigation should be conducted even
when no PD-251incident report has been prepared in response to a complaint, Assistant
Chief Peter Newsham said that “the officer would be in trouble.”[12]

However, Human Rights Watch was unable to find incident
reports for a significant number of cases in which a patient underwent a forensic
exam and reported to police.

WHC
records showed that 480 patients reported sexual assaults to the MPD at the
hospital between October 2008 and September 2011.

Human
Rights Watch was able to locate matching MPD incident reports for 310 victims
over the same period (64.5 percent of the total of cases reported at WHC).

For
the remaining 171 victims, Human Rights Watch was unable to find corresponding
documentation at MPD of a reported assault. Nor could these cases be located in
MPD’s database.

Of
the 310 cases for which we located an incident report, 34 were classified as
“miscellaneous” or “office information,” usually meaning
that MPD conducted no further investigation.

Since all investigations require a PD-251, the lack of
incident reports suggests that there was no police follow-up for 35.4 percent
of victims who reported an assault at the hospital. If we assume detectives
followed MPD’s own policy and that cases classified as
“miscellaneous” or “office information” have not been subject
to an investigation, the number of cases reported at WHC but not investigated
increases to 42.5 percent.

The problem may be even broader
than these numbers suggest. Studies of police reports in Illinois and Los
Angeles as well as a national sampling of victims indicate that at least 41
percent of victims who report an assault to the police do not get forensic
exams.[13] If this trend holds true for D.C. as well, then we
would expect the total number of incident reports at MPD to be significantly
higher than the number of reports coming through the hospital. However,
assuming the Washington Hospital Center data is correct, 436 victims had exams
and reported to MPD in the 3 year period analyzed by Human Rights Watch
(excluding 44 cases in which the victim reported to MPD at the hospital but did
not have an exam). Over the same time period, MPD has 571 incident reports.[14] Even if all the hospital reports were accounted for
at the MPD (as previously noted, at least 35.4 percent are not), the total
number of reports at the MPD would still be far lower than expected. If
approximately 41 percent of people who report to police do not have forensic
exams, the number of MPD reports for sexual assault for that period would be
expected to be 739 cases, not 571.[15]

Stopping the Investigation Before it Begins

The numbers alone present a
disturbing picture, though they do not on their own explain why the MPD appears
not to have documented all of the cases that victims reported to them. Some
clues may be found in depositions taken in 2008 as part of a civil lawsuit
against the MPD by a student whose December 2006 sexual assault case was closed
without investigation. In those depositions, SAU detectives revealed that, at
the time, they regularly failed to even write reports for cases when SAU
detectives did not believe victims.

In May 2012, MPD Chief Cathy Lanier
told Human Rights Watch that following the lawsuit she had transferred four
detectives out of the SAU and developed a new policy for handling sexual
assault cases. The new policy, which went into effect in August 2011, is nearly
identical in substance to the previous policy (apart from changing the location
of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program). It, and the changes that
occurred after 2008, are acknowledged in this report. However, unless otherwise
noted, all data collected and examples of improper police behavior referenced
in this report occurred after these changes were adopted, and after a
new program for conducting forensic exams for sexual assault victims in the
D.C. area was established at WHC in late 2008.[16]

Despite the MPD’s reforms, the mismatch we found
between victim reports at WHC and incident reports collected by the police
suggests that some of the practices mentioned in the 2008 depositions continued
well into 2011.

“Office Information” or “Miscellaneous” Cases

Human Rights Watch reviewed internal
police files for 125 cases that were classified as “office
information” (a category sometimes also called
“miscellaneous”). These included 82, between 2009 and 2011, for
which no case number was assigned and no incident report prepared. According to
MPD procedure, an incident report is supposed to be prepared for cases
classified as “office information,” but these cases are, according
to the MPD’s official policies, “closed by definition.”[17] If further investigation is needed, it
“should be classified as an ‘allegation’ and handled
accordingly.”[18]

Classifying a report of sexual
assault as “office information” is problematic for at least two
reasons: one, because it shuts down investigations; and two, because
“office information” classifications do not hide the victim’s
identity, address, or phone number on the publicly available report, as is
usual when a sexual assault is reported.[19] As a result, victims are potentially exposed to
public identification.

Based on interviews with witnesses
and a review of police files, the MPD appears particularly likely to disregard
cases involving alcohol or drugs, or to document them as for “office
information only.”[20] This practice suggests a lack of understanding or
sensitivity among some MPD detectives to the fact that sexual assaults
frequently occur at times when the victim has consumed substances such as
alcohol or drugs. The victim’s consumption of such substances—or
the victim’s confusion or inability to recall some events surrounding the
assault—should not be a reason to automatically dismiss a case.

A few examples of “office information”
cases found in police files include the following:

In
late 2011, after consuming a “double shot” of alcohol, a victim
reported waking up to find an unknown male engaging in vaginal intercourse with
her. She did not know where she was but took a taxi to the hospital for a
forensic exam. According to police notes, the victim had bruises on her face, a
laceration on her upper lip, and pain in her vaginal area. The victim could not
recall the evening’s events after leaving a nightclub or indicate where
the assault took place. The detective wrote, “At this time this is an
allegation solely due to the fact there is DNA that will be transported to the
forensic lab where a case number is needed for processing.” The detective
suggested follow-up at the nightclub and hospital, but nine months later, there
was no indication of any investigation in the file after the initial statement.[21]

In
early 2010, a student reported that she was forced to orally copulate a
stranger in an alley after a night of drinking. Although the complainant had a
forensic exam, the detective did not prepare an incident report or assign the
report a case number, and there is no indication that the detective followed up
on evidence obtained from the forensic exam. The document trail indicates
nothing to suggest that the detective did any investigation or made any effort
to find additional evidence or witnesses, yet the detective’s internal
report concludes, “There is nothing to corroborate the
complainant’s alleged allegations.”[22]

A
young woman was at a bar in February 2011 when an acquaintance brought her a
drink. She remembers nothing after that, but the next morning friends found her
with no underwear between two parked cars. According to people with knowledge
of the case, the police told her that because she did not remember anything
there was nothing to report.[23] Internal police investigation
files confirm that police recorded the incident as “office
information” because “no crime was reported.” The police
advised the nurse they would not be taking any items collected from the victim
because it was a “no report.” The detective notes say the detective
“provided [the victim] with [my] business card and said to call if she
needed police services.” Though the victim told the detective the next
day that she would like to know what the police could do about her case, the
case remained classified as “office information” and no indication
of investigation was in the file.[24]

Downgrading or Omitting Sex Offenses

Another way in which a sexual assault report may fall
through the cracks is by being classified as a non-sex offense or as a less
serious crime.

MPD Chief Cathy Lanier correctly noted in her December 20,
2012, letter to Human Rights Watch that criminal charges are ultimately decided
by the prosecutor’s office (in this case, the US Attorney’s Office
for the District of Columbia), which can upgrade or downgrade charges as
appropriate.

However, police misclassification
minimizes what happened to the victim and may have other consequences. For
example, until June 2012, allegations and other miscellaneous types of cases
were not referred to the MPD’s Victims Services. Misclassification also
has implications for the public, which is entitled to know accurate information
about local crime.

Because detectives put the offense with the most severe
penalty first on the incident report, sexual assault cases may sometimes be
listed as a second offense after burglary or another crime. However, in some
cases, victims reported sexual assaults or attempted sexual assaults, but their
crimes were categorized as some other type of crime and either not referred to
the SAU at all or not investigated by the SAU as a sexual assault.

For example, a nurse’s report notes a case of a woman
who in September 2010 was pushed into her apartment by a stranger when she
tried to open the door. Her assailant threw her onto the bed, ripped her dress
off, and lowered her leggings. The woman urinated on herself in fear and the
suspect threw her against a wall, but did not continue with the sexual assault.
According to a hospital report, MPD investigated the case as a simple assault
and burglary rather than an attempted rape.[25] An
October 2009 case in which the victim was handcuffed, driven to an undisclosed
location, and sexually assaulted was categorized only as
“kidnapping” with no reference to a sexual assault. [26]

MPD detectives also categorized several cases as
“misdemeanors,” although they appear to be more serious sex abuse
cases.[27] For
example, one 2008 incident report classified as a “misdemeanor” indicates:

The
complainant reported that while walking on the street the suspect threw her to
the ground, ripped off her underwear, pulled down his pants, made contact with
her vagina (without penetration) and attempted to hold his hand over her mouth
before fleeing.[28]

Another 2009 “misdemeanor” incident
report reads:

The
complainant states that the suspect penetrated her vagina several times with
his penis without her consent. The suspect then left the room. When the suspect
returned, he slapped the complainant in the face and pushed her down on a
mattress. The suspect then penetrated the complainant’s vagina with his
penis again without her consent. The assault ended when the suspect masturbated
on the complainant’s face and in her mouth.[29]

Administrative Closures or Exceptional Clearances

Even in cases that are documented and investigated,
interviews with witnesses and a review of investigative files raise concerns
about the thoroughness of the investigations. In over two-thirds of the 66
arrest warrant affidavit requests in files reviewed by Human Rights Watch the
US Attorney’s Office rejected the requests, primarily on grounds that the
case presented was “weak.” As a result, all these cases were
counted as “administrative closures.” Of the 27 percent of cases
(17 cases) that were approved, more than half were charged with misdemeanors or
non-sex offenses. In other cities, studies indicate prosecutors press charges
in more than half of cases (54.5 percent) presented for warrants, twice the
rate seen in D.C.[30]

Human Rights Watch only reviewed 66 warrant requests, as
this was not the focus of the research, so we cannot draw definitive
conclusions from the data on warrant refusals. However, the high rate of
refusal in the limited sample does raise concerns about possible overuse of
exceptional or administrative clearances to close cases.[31]
Under FBI crime reporting guidelines, “exceptional clearance” is
supposed to occur in cases in which the suspect is known to police and enough
information exists to support criminal charges (probable cause), but
circumstances beyond law enforcement control prevent arrest (e.g., the suspect
is deceased or already incarcerated). However, when a case has been presented
to a prosecutor and rejected without an arrest, the MPD also considers the case
cleared by exceptional means.

Because the FBI does not distinguish between cases cleared
by arrest and cases cleared exceptionally when it publishes crime data from
cities, a case closed without an arrest still appears as a case “cleared
by arrest.”[32] This
practice may explain the MPD’s unusually high clearance rate for rape.
For example, in 2010, the MPD reported clearing 59.8 percent of its rape cases
(110 of184 cases), well above the 40 percent average clearance rate for
similarly sized cities. Yet in data it provided to Human Rights Watch, the MPD
showed only 22 arrests for all sexual assaults in 2010, including 6 child abuse
cases (which may be included in FBI data) and possibly other sex crimes which
may not be included in FBI data (such as some misdemeanors and sex crimes with
male victims).[33] In its
response to Human Rights Watch about data concerns, the MPD indicated that its
clearance rate was high because it included cases against female victims under
18. Yet this would not explain why MPD’s rates are so much higher than
other cities, all of which also include juvenile cases. And in any case, an
analysis exclusively of 2010 adult cases based on data provided by MPD to Human
Rights Watch shows a clearance by arrest rate of 5 percent for all adult sex
abuse cases, including misdemeanors, for 2010.

Police Mistreatment of
Victims

Many victims, hospital staff, and others who work with
victims said that they experienced or witnessed insensitive treatment by some
MPD detectives when victims tried to report sexual assault. A number of victims
said they felt that their experience reporting to the police was as bad, if not
worse, than the assault itself.[34] Human
Rights Watch documented the following re-victimizing or counter-productive
behaviors among some MPD personnel:

Questioning
survivors’ credibility, including threatening victims with prosecution if
they are found to be lying;

Actively
discouraging victims from reporting or undergoing a forensic exam;

Asking
victim-blaming or inappropriate questions;

Requiring
detailed interviews while the victim is traumatized;

Failing
to respond to victims seeking information about their cases or calling because
their assailant is threatening them;

A
range of other insensitive treatment

Questioning Survivors’ Credibility

Victims and witnesses reported that
some detectives made it clear they did not believe victims in a number of ways.
In some instances they threatened victims with prosecution for false reporting.
One detective, according to medical staff, told a victim, “If I find out
you are lying, I will look you up and arrest you.”[35]
A victim who reported an assault in April 2011 said she was told “no one
would believe her” and that she was “lying” and
“wasting their time.”[36] Others
are more subtle. One victim, for example, reported that a detective rolled her
eyes repeatedly while the victim told her what had happened to her in May 2011.
A victim said of her experience with the MPD in the fall of 2009,

I’ll never be able to stop shaking my head at the
fact that not only was he not supportive, he made me feel awful about myself by
telling me it was nothing more than an issue that I got too drunk and was
regretting a decision I made. It tore me up that he did not believe me and he
made it clear to me that he didn't believe me. Traumatized is the word that I
felt from the investigator, in some ways, it was worse than the event itself.[37]

Memory lapses are commonly associated with trauma,[38]
but some detectives appeared to disbelieve victims if they were not able to
remember elements of the assault.[39] For
example, Julie M., a student at a local university, was assaulted on campus by
a stranger after she had been drinking. She said that when police asked her to
describe the assailant, she was unable to describe him in detail: “It was
hard for me to remember it because I was trying to block out what he looked
like.” She felt police did not believe her in part because she could not
provide a specific description, and she said that police closed her case at the
time she reported.[40]

Discouraging Forensic Exams and Reports

Hospital staff, advocates, and
victims indicate that detectives have at times tried to convince victims not to
report the assault or have a forensic exam. One observer estimated that in her
experience, nine times out of ten a survivor’s decision not to report may
be because of something police told the victim.[41]

Some detectives discourage
reporting by indicating that they will have to inform loved ones about their
behavior, stressing the serious consequences to the perpetrator of pursuing a
case, or indicating it will take “years” to get forensic tests
back.[42] Since
2008, police no longer have authority to decide whether or not a victim will receive
a forensic exam. But detective files indicate that in 2010 and 2011 detectives
still sometimes notified nurses in cases in which the victim was intoxicated
that they would not “authorize an exam” or that “the
[complainant] was not a victim of a crime.”[43]

Examples of police comments that have the effect of
discouraging reporting and forensic testing include:

When Dolores R. was assaulted as a student at a university
in D.C. in 2009, she tried to get a sexual assault exam at her university
hospital. Campus police called the MPD. She says that the SAU detective
who came to the hospital told her she would have to transfer to another
hospital to get an exam, that it was a long process, and perhaps she
“didn’t want to go through all that.” Dolores recalls the
detective implied she had to speak to the police to get a forensic exam,
though Dolores wasn’t sure she wanted to report the sexual assault.
Dolores later discovered that WHC was only down the street from where she
was. Dolores said the detective also made it clear she had her doubts
about Dolores’ story, and that it was not a strong enough case to
hold up in court. Dolores did not report her assault or get an exam.[44]

When one married victim, Laura T., attempted to report her
assault in late 2011, she indicated the detective told her he would have
to inform her husband in order to proceed with his investigation. “I
then asked him please don’t and he said ok – and then he
handed me a form to deny ongoing investigation [decline an investigation]
so therefore I signed it.”[45]

The attitude toward victim reporting is apparent in a June
2009 email from one detective to another about a victim he met at the hospital
while there for another case. The victim had initially not wanted to report,
but had changed her mind and went to Washington Hospital Center for a forensic
exam the next day. The detective at the hospital wrote,

I found out you dealt with her about 4 am Friday or
Saturday morning … and she chose not to make a report. Something about a
gang bang and being intoxicated…. Anyway, I think it was just an OI
[Office Information]. However, she now feels differently and wishes to make a
report…. She says her phone isn’t working but she can be reached …
Sorry, BUT IT IS WHAT IT IS!!!!!!![46]

Victim-Blaming

Several survivors and people who work closely with survivors
said that police often question victims or make comments in a manner suggesting
the victim is at fault.[47] One
medical professional said she heard police appearing to blame the victim with
questions and comments that included, “You shouldn’t have been out
so late,” “For God’s sake, why did you do that?” or
“Why did you walk home by yourself after a few drinks?”[48]
Survivors and witnesses reported the following other examples of victim-blaming
remarks:

Medical staff overheard a detective tell an 18-year-old
runaway who was assaulted in the middle of the night, “You
shouldn’t have been outside. This is what happens at two in the
morning. What do you expect?”[49]

Dolores R., a university student who police talked out of
reporting her assault in 2009, said the detective asked her, “Why
didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you call a friend? Why
didn’t you call a cab?” Dolores said, “I did what I did
and I can’t change that.”[50]

Another
victim wrote in a 2009 complaint that a female SAU detective to whom she tried
to report an assault told her that if someone did something to her that she did
not like she “would say no or tell them to stop.” She said the
detective also asked “if [she] didn’t want them to do it, why [she]
didn’t stop them.”[51]

One victim filed a complaint that
referred to “the confrontational, insensitive manner in which they
questioned me,” which she said was “very degrading and humiliating.”
She added:

They seemed to be questioning my integrity…. How
could it be that detectives who are assigned to a sexual assault and violent
crime unit [are] allowed to behave in this manner?… I felt as if I was
assaulted on April 16, 2007, by police officers who swore an oath to serve and
protect.[52]

Requiring Detailed Interviews While the Victim is Traumatized

A lengthy interview immediately after an assault may not be
appropriate because of the possible effects of trauma on the victim.[53]
Victims are frequently traumatized during the initial interview (particularly
if it immediately follows the assault) and therefore may not be able to
concentrate or act rationally. It may have been hours since the victims last
slept and they may still be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. That is
why best practices recommended by the International Association of Chiefs of
Police suggest delaying a full interview except in exigent circumstances
requiring an arrest or identification.[54]

Although MPD policy allows detectives to schedule a follow
up interview with a victim after a forensic exam, in practice, detectives often
take a detailed statement from the victim before allowing him or her to have a
forensic exam. A follow-up interview is generally only scheduled later if the
victim is physically incapable of talking at the hospital.[55]

One officer explained that
detectives “really go into detail and sometimes they ask questions over
and over again.”[56] Even if the victim is too incapacitated to
communicate, the detectives do not always schedule an interview later. The
result is that some victims choose not to report or undergo an exam and others
fall through the cracks. For example:

An April
2009 case in which the complainant reported that the subject tried to rape her
but did not say how. The complainant was under the influence and had to be
woken with an ammonia capsule to be interviewed at the hospital. The case was
filed as “office information” because “The complainant did
not report a sexual assault.” The police file contained no indication of
follow-up with the complainant.[57]

A victim who reported being assaulted by three men in
Chinatown in 2010. According to an advocate, police spoke with her for
hours at the hospital before her exam, asking her to repeat the story to
different detectives. During that time she was not able to eat or drink.
She finally decided not to have the exam as she did not want her family,
who came to support her, to have to wait for her any longer.[58]

After receiving Human Rights Watch’s recommendation to
allow victims at least one full sleep cycle prior to conducting a full
interview, the MPD issued a memorandum in June 2012 affording victims 24 hours
after a preliminary interview before being re-interviewed, except in urgent
cases or when a delay would jeopardize the victim or other members of the
public.[59]
However, as of October 2012, a source at WHC told Human Rights Watch that they
had not yet observed any change in the MPD’s interviewing practices.[60]

Unresponsiveness

Numerous people who have worked closely with victims for
years said victims regularly complain that they do not hear back from MPD,
despite calling the department or individual officers repeatedly.[61]
This is true even when the victim has concerns for his or her safety. Shelly
D., who reported an assault in October 2009, said getting the police to respond
was “like pulling teeth” even after her assailant sent her several
threatening messages. Her detective “did not even bat an eye.”[62]
She ended up moving in order to avoid her assailant.

This lack of responsiveness reinforces victims’
perception that their cases are not taken seriously and is often upsetting to
them.[63] This
sentiment is reflected in one victim’s experience, which she described in
a written complaint in November 2009, filed with the Office of Police
Complaints:

Shortly after making the report I received threatening
emails from one of the parties involved. I phoned the detective and left
multiple messages regarding the emails. She never returned my phone call
… In the past week I have left multiple messages for both Detective []
and her supervisor Detective Sgt. ---. I have heard nothing from the
Metropolitan Police Department since filing the report, 3 months ago, despite
countless phone calls.... If I did not know better I would think that they were
persuaded not to pursue the case that I definitely want to pursue.[64]

Other Insensitive Behavior

The
response of the detective who interviewed Estella C., a 24-year-old student,
who reported being assaulted orally and vaginally by an acquaintance in his
truck in the spring of 2010. Estella drove herself to the police department to
report the crime after the assault. According to Estella, the detective who
interviewed her repeatedly asked whether the assailant was good at oral sex.
Estella said the detective rolled her eyes while she explained what happened,
made comments like “So you were into it,” and repeatedly said the
incident did not sound like rape to her.[65] The detective also said that
even though it “didn’t sound like a good case,” she was
“still going to have to type it up.”[66] Estella said she eventually
drove herself to the hospital for a forensic exam because she did not want to
spend more time with the detective, who acted like taking her case would be
inconvenient.[67]

Rosa
S. reported being abducted by two men wearing masks and raped repeatedly
overnight before being released the next morning. According to her lawyer and a
staff member of an organization who worked with her, the detective who
interviewed her was very aggressive and asked, “You are only doing this
to get immigration status, aren’t you?”[68]

MPD Response

Since receiving a summary of this report’s findings on
May 30, 2012, the MPD has acted on several of the recommendations Human Rights
Watch made at the time, and has taken steps to improve how it handles sexual
assault cases. For example, the MPD has agreed to add treatment of victims as a
factor in evaluating SAU detectives, to create a victim satisfaction survey, to
increase supervision over sexual assault cases, to allow victims a sleep cycle
before conducting a detailed interview with them (except in emergency
situations), and to establish a multidisciplinary review of closed cases. The
commander of the Criminal Investigations Division of the MPD included many of
these recommendations in a June 12 memo to the SAU. On June 8, 2012, the MPD
issued a reminder to all police that they are required to document every
complaint of sexual assault.

The MPD’s introduction of the
reforms noted above is a positive and welcome step. However, we remain
concerned about other aspects of the MPD’s response to our findings,
which has been extremely hostile and defensive in tone. In its initial response
to a summary of the findings in June 2012, the MPD insisted that the issues
raised in this report have “long since been addressed” and claimed
that the Human Rights Watch investigation was “flawed” and
“unsubstantiated.” In its December 20, 2012, response to a summary
of our revised findings (which took into account additional information the MPD
provided after our June 2012 exchange), Chief Cathy Lanier dismissed the
findings as “nonsensical.” Her response stated that our finding
about closure rates “exhibits misunderstanding, ignorance or purposeful
misreporting” and insists that “HRW in its desire to draw public
attention to themselves has used unsupported and erroneous information to
attack MPD’s handling of sex-abuse cases” as part of an effort to
“make a public spectacle” for “self-serving” ends.

In short, the MPD strenuously denies there is any problem
with the handling of sexual assault cases, but is nonetheless willing to make
some improvements to its policy. The MPD also objects to not being given a full
copy of the report well in advance of its release.

The MPD’s hostile response is particularly troubling
precisely because it runs counter to the very steps that it needs to take to
address the problem. As previously noted, to meaningfully reform what appear to
be persistent practices within the MPD requires that its leadership begin by
acknowledging the existence of a problem and commit to addressing it in an
accountable and transparent manner. A detailed response to various claims made
by Chief Lanier about the report is available at http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/FactSheet_0.pdf.

Also of concern is the fact that, in meetings to discuss our
findings, some amongst the MPD leadership have expressed repeated hostility
toward not only Human Rights Watch, but also those who are perceived as
cooperating with the report.

In the weeks after Human Rights Watch shared its findings
with the MPD on May 30, we were troubled to learn of a few situations in which
people or agencies that the MPD believes shared information with us or
cooperated with our investigation experienced unexpected adverse actions from
the Office of Victim Services (OVS) in the Mayor’s Office. (The deputy
mayor for Public Safety and Justice in the Mayor’s Office oversees both the
OVS and the MPD).

The director of the Sexual Assault
Nurse Examiner (SANE) program at Washington Hospital Center had notified the OVS
of her intent to leave the program shortly before the MPD was informed of the
contents of this report. At the time, the OVS had asked her to train a
replacement and stay until October 2012. But after the report’s findings
became known, the OVS instructed security to lock her out of her office at the
Lighthouse (the building where the SANE program is based). The OVS rescinded
the offer for her to facilitate a transition, searched her emails, and
questioned her and others in the forensic nursing program about their
cooperation with this investigation.[69] In addition, the OVS instructed nurses not to speak
with Human Rights Watch.[70] The OVS also asked nurses to sign non-disclosure
agreements.[71] The OVS has also substantially cut funding for the
D.C. Rape Crisis Center, which some in the MPD have associated with this
report, in a number of areas since June.

Inaction and Its Impact

Insensitive police behavior can have devastating
consequences.

Sexual assault victims whom police treat poorly when they
report are more likely to develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).[72]
Victims are also less likely to cooperate with the police investigation,
significantly decreasing chances that the perpetrator will face justice.[73]

Poor treatment of victims also undermines public confidence
in law enforcement and means other victims are less likely to come forward. As Susan
said, “if this happened to a friend of mine, I’d tell her to think
twice before talking to police.” Since sexual assault is already the most
underreported violent crime (with less than 20 percent of victims nationally
reporting incidents to the police), behavior that discourages reporting is a
public safety concern.[74]
Furthermore, failing to accurately report sexual assault misleads the public
about crime rates in their communities and distorts public policy debates over
allocating resources for law enforcement and victim services.

In addition, the decision not to
investigate means that evidence may be lost or remain uncollected by police.[75] It can be demoralizing for nurses, and frustrating
for advocates who fear that subjecting victims to a four-hour invasive exam to
collect forensic evidence may do more harm than good. As one former advocate asked,
“Would I really encourage my girlfriend to go through a kit and be
re-traumatized if nothing is happening with the kit?”[76]

Failing to investigate sexual assault violates the United
States’ obligations under international human rights standards, which recognize
rape as a human rights abuse and require the US to protect women and men from
sexual assault and rape, while respecting the dignity of victims.

The treatment of victims and handling of sexual assault
cases described in this report also violate official MPD policies governing
adult sexual assault investigations. These call for “unbiased
investigation into all reports of sexual assaults” and require that those
who investigate sexual assault complaints be “sensitive” to
victims’ needs.[77]
They also contravene Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for the SAU, which
state that law enforcement has a “legal and moral obligation to
thoroughly investigate reports of suspected sexual abuse and determine whether
a crime has been committed,” and to conduct investigations in “a
professional and sensitive manner.” The SOPs also state that detectives
should realize that an investigation may have “a tremendous impact on the
welfare of the victim” and on the successful prosecution of offenders.[78]
However, it appears that the MPD is not vigorously enforcing these policies.[79]

Effective Approaches and Next Steps

Materials and information that Human Rights Watch gathered
indicate that MPD uniformed officers do not receive training in the legal
definition of sexual abuse in the District of Columbia, or in how to respond to
complaints of sexual assault.

Moreover, SAU detectives do not receive specialized training
in trauma or sexual assault investigations before joining the unit, which has
no information in its Standard Operating Procedures on drug or alcohol facilitated
sexual assaults, non-stranger cases, or the impact of trauma on sexual assault
survivors. Detectives are not selected for the unit based on their suitability
for handling these kinds of sensitive cases, although as of this writing, the
chief of police advised Human Rights Watch that plans may be in place to
address this problem. The MPD has conducted some training for detectives in the
second half of 2012 and has applied for funds for additional training in 2013.

Human Rights Watch did not have data available to determine
whether race or other factors impacted police handling of sexual assault cases.

Although no single police
department handles cases perfectly, Human Rights Watch found that other US
cities have a number of effective approaches to investigating sexual assault
cases. These include a victim-centered approach to investigation that includes:
requiring sensitivity to trauma issues during the interview, allowing victims
one or two sleep cycles before an interview except in urgent circumstances,
follow-up, referrals to victim services, creating a non-judgmental environment,
and allowing victims to be accompanied by an advocate during police interviews.
They also include proper training, and respectful collaboration with victim
services providers in the community, such as nurses and rape crisis counselors.

Treatment of victims also should be a factor when evaluating
SAU detectives. Most importantly, supervisors should ensure all calls for
sexual assault cases are documented and all detectives are held accountable for
failing to adhere to department policy. The key to any successful
implementation of reform is commitment from leadership to thoroughly investigating
these cases and treating victims properly. As one expert advised, “Don’t
let training be a scapegoat for bad supervision.”[80]

Any attempt to remedy these serious problems should start
with the District of Columbia and its MPD ensuring that every reported sexual
assault case has a written record and is thoroughly investigated so that culprits
can be identified and arrested. Although measures have been put in place for
closer supervision of SAU detectives and the MPD states that “because of
suggestions from HRW, MPD changed the reporting procedure and that public
reports are taken on all cases,” stringent scrutiny by the Washington D.C.
City Council and Mayor’s Office will be necessary to ensure that changes
are implemented in a meaningful manner and sexual assault victims are taken
seriously, unlike last time this problem was revealed in 2008. This should be
done by an independent oversight body, which conducts regular external reviews
of sexual assault investigation files and department records to ensure cases
are not falling through the cracks.

A model for such a review system can be found in
Philadelphia. In response to a series of Philadelphia Inquirer articles
in 1999 revealing that the Philadelphia Police Department was misclassifying
and failing to investigate sexual assault cases, the police commissioner
invited advocacy groups to review its sexual assault cases. This review has
occurred on an annual basis for over a decade and is regarded as successful by
both police and advocacy groups. All stakeholders report that the practice has
resulted in improved police investigations of sexual assault cases.

***

Human Rights Watch welcomes the MPD’s willingness to
consider a number of its recommendations and the changes in its policies that
have already occurred. Effective, durable, and systemic reforms are needed to
supplement the improvements that have already taken place and support proper
investigation of sexual assaults. Police and government officials need to
demonstrate clearly to victims of sexual assault that their cases matter and
will be taken seriously.

Recommendations

To the United States Congress

Pass the Violence Against Women Reauthorization
Act (VAWA). While the bill never reached the President last year, separate
versions of VAWA before both the Senate and House in 2012 funded training for
law enforcement agencies on how to improve investigation of sexual assault
cases and on how to appropriately treat victims. The bills also provided grants
to help appoint victim counselors for the prosecution of sexual assault cases.

For
the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), recommend collecting and publishing data
separately for crimes law enforcement has “cleared by arrest” and
cleared “by exceptional means.”

Clarify in the UCR Handbook that “clearing by
exceptional means” does not include cases in which a prosecutor has
rejected a warrant request for insufficient evidence.

Consider
revising UCR data collection to include collecting data that would reflect
prosecutorial outcomes in order to provide the public with more meaningful
information on what ultimately happens to sexual assault cases reported in
communities.

To the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights
Division

Conduct
an investigation into the MPD’s handling of sexual assault cases to
determine whether it has engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that
deprives individuals of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected
by the Constitution or US laws.

To the Council of the District of Columbia and the D.C.
Mayor’s Office

Establish
a task force (including a nationally recognized expert on sexual assault
investigations) to examine the MPD’s policies and practices for handling
sex crimes cases and recommend changes to ensure all complaints of sexual assaults
are documented and investigated and victims of sexual assault are treated
appropriately. The task force should also examine the definition of sex abuse
in D.C. to ensure it is in line with current standards.

Pass
legislation giving victims the right to have an advocate, victim specialist, or
support person of their choosing present during law enforcement interviews and
proceedings.

Create
a permanent independent oversight body tasked to conduct regular reviews of
police sexual assault investigation files. The body should report publicly to
the city council. It should include members representing civil society, such as
groups that provide support services to victims.

Ensure
Victim Services within the MPD (which provides support, information, and referrals
to sexual assault and domestic violence survivors) has adequate resources to
expand support to the Sexual Assault Unit (SAU). Request regular reports on
implementing recommended changes to handle sexual assault cases from the MPD as
part of the council’s regular performance oversight hearings.

To the Metropolitan Police Department

To Improve Accountability for the Follow-Up on Sexual
Assault Cases

Include
treatment of victims as a factor in evaluation of SAU detectives and follow-through
on any complaint regarding how a case was handled by MPD. Victims, support
persons, witnesses, or third parties should be able to lodge complaints. A
supervisor should investigate complaints, with second-level review. Transfer out
of the unit and, as appropriate, discipline detectives who are regularly the
subject of complaints.

Require
responding officers to document all reports of sexual assault and require SAU supervisors
(a sergeant or lieutenant) to compare call log sheets for sexual assault cases
to PD-251s to ensure each report is documented.

Require
that supervisors ensure that forensic evidence kits and other relevant evidence
are collected regularly.

Assign
all allegations to detectives for follow-up investigation, and require
supervisors to review sexual assault allegations to determine whether they are
being properly converted to sexual assault cases.

Establish
a tracking system allowing supervisors to monitor the reporting, clearing, and
closing of all cases by each detective to identify potential problems.

Establish
regular multidisciplinary review of closed cases to discuss ways to improve the
investigation and prosecution of sexual assault cases, as well as treatment of
victims.

Develop
a system allowing victims to complete and submit victim satisfaction surveys for
the MPD to review and respond to, in order to change responses to sexual
assault based on input by survivors.

Require
a prosecutor to review all cases in which the perpetrator has been identified
before it is closed.

To Treat Sexual Assault Survivors Fairly

Protect
the confidentiality of all victims reporting a sexual assault, regardless of
the classification of the offense as a sex abuse offense, an allegation, or an
“office information” (or “miscellaneous”) case,
including cases in which sexual assault is not the “primary”
charge.

Give
victims the option of having an advocate, victim
specialist, or support person of their choosing present during law enforcement interviews or
proceedings.

Provide
referral information for counseling for all victims who report sexual assault.

Require
detectives to provide victims with transportation from the hospital after a
forensic exam unless he or she has made other arrangements.

Provide
all victims with a case number and the detective’s contact information and
work hours. Tell victims to call 911 in an emergency.

Require
a detective or victim specialist to return calls from victims within one
business day; work with victim advocates or Victim Services to keep victims
regularly informed of the status of the investigation.

If
a decision is made not to prosecute, inform the victim in a timely and
sensitive manner and, if appropriate, offer referrals to community resources
for counseling.

Develop
an anonymous reporting system.

Provide
a comfortable and private place to interview victims at the SAU.

Increase
the role of victim specialists within the SAU to provide support and referrals
to all sexual assault victims and help with practical arrangements.

Except
in urgent circumstances, allow victims at least one full sleep cycle before
scheduling a follow-up interview by a detective.

Include
a former SAU member in upper echelons of MPD management or establish an advisor
on sexual assault investigations for the chief of police.

After
implementing reforms, conduct public outreach to encourage members of the
community to report sexual assaults and strengthen trust in the police.

Regularly
train all police officers and recruits to understand the realistic dynamics of
sexual assault (including non-stranger cases and drug or alcohol-facilitated
assaults), the effects of trauma, and proper treatment of victims.

Train
detectives to interview sexual assault victims appropriately using
trauma-informed techniques and to understand the impact of trauma on victims of
sexual assault; to investigate non-stranger and drug-facilitated sexual
assaults; and how to document sexual assault using the language of
non-consensual sex.

In
the selection of detectives for the SAU, take into account the detectives’
suitability for handling sensitive victim interviews and their ability to be
open to understanding the realistic and evolving dynamics of sexual assault.

Methodology

This report is based on more than 150 telephone or in-person
interviews, as well as documents produced for Human Rights Watch by the
District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the Office of
Victims Services (OVS) in the Executive Office of the Mayor of the District of
Columbia, which oversees the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program at
Washington Hospital Center (WHC), and other government agencies in response to
public records requests.

Interviews in Washington D.C. and other major cities (for
comparison purposes) were conducted with: sexual assault survivors, current or
former police chiefs or commissioners, heads or former heads of sex crimes
units, forensic nurses and former forensic nurses, national experts on police
responses to sexual violence, rape victim advocates, sex crimes detectives,
police officers, staff of sexual assault service organizations, doctors who
work with sexual assault victims, university staff who work closely with
assault survivors on campus, a judge, a defense attorney, a forensic toxicology
expert, sex crimes prosecutors, attorneys representing sexual assault victims,
government officials, counselors, journalists who have covered police handling
of sexual assault cases in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, and staff of
several local community organizations who work in some way with sexual assault
survivors, including 10 community organizations in the District of Columbia.

Unless otherwise specified, the witnesses and victims
interviewed all described incidents that occurred since the opening in October
2008 of the SANE program at Washington Hospital Center, the designated hospital
for care of adult sexual assault victims in the District. SANE has seen service
for sexual assault victims expand from one trained forensic nurse to a dozen
certified forensic nurse examiners who are on-call 24 hours a day. The nurse examiners
have extensive training in how to provide medical, forensic, and emotional care
to sexual assault victims.

Most interviews were conducted individually and in private.
Four group interviews were conducted: one with sexual assault survivors,
another with volunteer advocates, and two with Sexual Assault Response Teams
(SART) in Philadelphia and Kansas City (which have re-examined their approach
to sexual assault cases in the past decade). No incentive or remuneration was
offered to interviewees. Two interviews were conducted through email. An
American Sign Language interpreter was used for two interviews.

Given the sensitive nature of the topic and confidentiality
concerns expressed by many interviewees, all survivors’ names and other
identifying details, such as the precise date and location of the interview,
have been withheld, unless they specifically asked to be identified. All
initials are randomly assigned pseudonyms. In some instances, the date of the
interview has been changed to protect the identity of the source.

Some interviewees who work closely
with law enforcement are identified in this report with pseudonyms due to their
concerns that their comments would jeopardize relationships with police and
negatively impact their ability to provide services to victims. However, not
everyone was comfortable being interviewed, even with use of a pseudonym.
Indeed, one expert in the field noted that an unanticipated result of the move
to have law enforcement work more closely with community groups that support
victims is that it has silenced potential critics of police behavior. Following
the June 8 police response to our letter, a number of sources expressed
additional concern about protecting their identities, so in some cases more
general descriptions of their occupations have been used to obscure their
identities.

In addition to interviews, we submitted document requests
under the District of Columbia Freedom of Information Act to the MPD, the OVS,
the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia, and the
Office of Police Complaints.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the OVS, and the
Office of Police Complaints cooperated fully with our requests for information
about toxicology reports, number of people seeking sexual assault kits, and
complaints about police handling of sexual assault cases.

The MPD initially failed to provide a complete or timely response
to our request for information about policies and procedures relating to sexual
assault, training materials, call records, and investigative material. The
MPD’s response took over 12 months and excluded all investigative files
relating to sexual assault apart from public incident report forms. After
receiving our May 30, 2012, letter outlining our findings, and as this report
was being prepared for press, the police supplemented their response with
information that had been erroneously excluded from their initial response, but
still did not include investigative files. That information was incorporated
into the report and data analysis.

As part of its research, Human
Rights Watch also reviewed deposition transcripts and discovery material from a
2008 civil lawsuit that had been brought against the MPD. Transcripts included
testimony from a sexual assault survivor, a family member, a sergeant
responsible for a squad of patrol officers, three patrol officers, and two
detectives and two detective sergeants (supervisors) from the MPD’s
Sexual Assault Unit (SAU). Some of those deposed have since been removed from the
SAU and in August 2011, the MPD put in place a new policy for handling adult
sexual assault cases. However, as noted above, the incidents described in this
report primarily occurred between late 2008 and November 2011, when the primary
research for this report concluded, after the time that the MPD indicates it
undertook a number of reforms to address issues revealed in the police
depositions.

Human Rights Watch also reviewed academic studies on the
prevalence of sexual assault, incidence of false reporting, the effect of law
enforcement’s response on survivors and the incidence of re-traumatization,
the effect of having advocates present during police interviews, and the
toxicology of drugs used to facilitate sexual assaults.

On May 30, 2012, Human Rights Watch met with members of the MPD
including Commander George Kucik, Lieutenant Pamela Burkett-Jones, Sergeant
Ronald Keith Reed, and Tyria Fields, Program Manager for Victim Services.
Information from that meeting is incorporated into this report.

At the meeting, Human Rights Watch notified the department
of the findings in the report, provided a written summary of its contents, and
gave the MPD an opportunity to respond.

In the following months, the police provided over 1000
incident reports, which we have incorporated into our data analysis.[81] The
police also provided written responses to the summary of the report on June 8
and on September 14. The substance of these responses, as well as comments made
by Chief Cathy Lanier to Human Rights Watch by telephone in response to the
summary of our findings on June 1, have been incorporated into this report. The
MPD chose to publish HRW’s summary findings as of May 30 along with its
response on their website on June 8.

In its June 8 written response to Human Rights Watch, the
MPD identified a victim by name who had not wished to be identified publicly
(and who Human Rights Watch, in its letter, had not identified). When Human
Rights Watch discovered that the MPD had posted its response on its website,
including the victim’s name, we requested that the victim’s name be
redacted out of concern for her privacy. In response, Chief Lanier wrote,

MPD cannot accommodate this request at this time. HRW used
this pre-reform (2006) case as an illustration of the current state of affairs
at MPD. MPD feels that it is necessary that the public be given an opportunity
to research this matter for themselves (using public information), so they can
put this allegation in proper context. Transparency is a two way street.[82]

The MPD complained that it was given inadequate time to
respond to the report. However, the MPD has been aware of Human Rights
Watch’s investigation for over a year. Human Rights Watch notified MPD
about its research in April 2011 and requested cooperation during the year in
correspondence with MPD lawyers.

Shortly after we initiated this investigation, on May 6,
2011, the OVS informed us that Chief Lanier had requested contact information
for this report’s researcher. Human Rights Watch provided contact
information immediately, yet there was no follow-up from the MPD. A number of
witnesses stated that members of MPD had indicated to them that they were aware
of Human Rights Watch’s investigation over the course of 2011.

Human Rights Watch requested a formal interview with members
of the SAU on May 3, 2012, and received a response only on May 22, 2012, resulting
in the May 30 meeting. On June 14, Human Rights Watch met with Chief Lanier,
Assistant Chief Peter Newsham, and Sergeant Ronald Reid to seek their views on
our findings and recommendations and share with them the results of our revised
data analysis that incorporated the new incident reports MPD provided in early
June. At that meeting, the MPD invited Human Rights Watch to access an internal
database, the Washington Area Criminal Intelligence Information System (WACIIS),
to look for hospital cases that were still missing documentation. Human Rights
Watch reviewed the WACIIS database with MPD staff on June 19. Information from
that review is included in this report.

An August 21, 2012, settlement agreement for a lawsuit Human
Rights Watch brought to compel a more complete response to our document request
enabled us to review investigative files for 173 cases at the MPD’s
offices, plus 88 cases from 2009 through 2011 that were not assigned case
numbers. The files were taken from WACIIS, which should contain a complete
record of an investigation. According to the Sexual Assault Unit’s
Standard Operating Procedures, “[a]ny information received or actions
performed on a case shall be documented by the Detectives/officials on a WACIIS
PD 854.”[83]

Human Rights Watch moved the release date for the report
from June to December to enable it to analyze the additional information
obtained from the MPD in June, July, and August and to ensure that MPD had
adequate opportunity to provide all relevant information for this analysis.
Human Rights Watch also offered to interview individuals recommended by MPD as
having information relevant for this report.

As a result, Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 people at
MPD’s request. Seven of those interviewed were prosecutors (who each
asked not to be identified in the report), three were doctors, and a fourth was
the head of MPD’s Victim Services whom Human Rights Watch had met on May
30. Although none was in a position to observe police initial interaction with
victims (as one prosecutor said, “we don’t go behind the curtain to
see if there are other cases,)”[84]
which is the focus of this report, their general observations about the SAU
have been incorporated into this report.

The data analysis section of this
report includes a more detailed discussion of Human Rights Watch’s
efforts to ensure that the MPD had an opportunity to locate missing case
information.

On December 6, 2012, Human Rights Watch provided the MPD with a summary of our
updated findings and provided them with two weeks to respond. Their December 20
response is included in this report.

I. Background

The Metropolitan Police Department
(MPD) is one of the 10 largest local police agencies in the United States and
serves as the primary law enforcement agency for the District of Columbia. The
department includes more than 4,400 members, of which approximately 3,800 are
sworn police officers and 600 are civilian employees.[85] Although a number of other law enforcement agencies
operate in the District (including the US Park Police, the Metro Transit
Police, the Capitol Police, and the Secret Service)most local crimes fall under MPD’s
jurisdiction.[86]

The Criminal Investigations Division of MPD includes a
specialized Sexual Assault Unit (SAU). A lieutenant is responsible for
overseeing the unit, which includes two sergeants and 16 detectives.[87]
The SAU is responsible for the primary and follow-up investigation of all
sexual assaults that occur in the District of Columbia involving adult victims.[88]

MPD Procedures for
Investigating Sexual Assault

According to the unit’s
Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), cases are assigned to the unit in a number
of ways: communications (i.e. dispatchers), hospitals, anonymous calls,
walk-ins, other police agencies, or referrals by advocacy groups.[89] A review of incident reports shows that most sexual
assaults are reported via a radio run (a response to a 911 call), a walk-in, or
on-scene (an officer was flagged down on site or called to the scene).

According to MPD’s website, a person reporting a
sexual assault can expect the following:

A visit by a police officer to the location of the
reported incident when a dispatcher receives a call.

A police officer to ask some questions about what
happened.

The responding police officer to contact the SAU once an
incident involving sexual assault has been reported.

Transfer of the investigation to the detective once he or
she arrives at the scene.

The detective to conduct a more detailed interview.

The detective to contact the Forensic Science Division to
respond to the scene to collect evidence at the location of the crime.

The detective to arrange for the victim to be taken to the
hospital for a forensic exam, if necessary.

A specially trained nurse to conduct the forensic exam.

The role of the responding officer is limited.[90]
The officer is to contact the witness, conduct a basic interview to find out
the “whens, wheres and hows.”[91]
If there is any mention of sexual assault, the patrol officer contacts the SAU.[92]
“Members [responding patrol officers] shall not question
the victim in detail about the offense” (emphasis in original order).[93]

An SAU detective is required to respond to the scene of all
complaints of sexual assault, even if it is not the primary crime being
reported, and all crimes that appear to have sexual overtones.[94]
Under the current policy, the SAU detective, not the responding officer, also
takes the victim to the hospital if the victim consents to a forensic exam.[95]
Forensic exams are typically offered to victims who report within 96 hours of
their assault, though in some circumstances it may be possible to collect
evidence beyond that period.[96]

Some sexual assault victims, however, report first to a
hospital. The designated hospital for care of adult sexual assault victims in D.C.
is Washington Hospital Center (WHC), which has hosted the Sexual Assault Nurse
Examiner (SANE) program since late 2008 (see Methodology section).

The SANE Program is activated through a hospital hotline
when a victim (patient) appears at a hospital or reports an assault to police.[97]
According to SANE program protocol, the hotline contacts the SANE nurse on
call, an advocate from the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, and, if the patient has not
already gone to police and would like to report an assault, law enforcement. As
a result of reforms instituted since 2008, the hospital dispatch system
contacts the SAU directly and an SAU detective responds to the hospital so that
the victim only has to speak to a single law enforcement officer.[98]

When patients arrive, they are put in a quiet room to await
their exam.[99]
If law enforcement (an SAU detective) arrives first, the detective may
interview the patient in the quiet room before the exam. The rape crisis center
advocate is not allowed to be present for the law enforcement interview, but is
available to provide information and emotional support otherwise. The SANE
nurse then interviews the victim again and conducts a head-to-toe examination
of the victim’s body, documenting and photographing visible physical
injuries, performing a pelvic exam, and collecting biological samples. This
usually takes four hours.[100]
The various swabs and samples are placed in separate envelopes or tubes,
labeled, sealed, and put in a large envelope—the forensic evidence kit
(or sometimes called a “rape kit” or Sexual Assault Evidence
Collection Kit).

The SAU detective is responsible for picking up the forensic
evidence kit and delivering it to the Crime Scene Investigations Branch within
24 hours of completing the exam.[101]
The detective is supposed to schedule a follow-up interview with the victim at
the SAU office as soon as possible—but in all cases within 72 hours[102]—
to review the completeness of the preliminary investigation, determine the
scope and direction of the follow-up investigation, and submit all the
paperwork to an SAU official for review.[103]
The detective continues the follow-up investigation in accordance with police
protocols.

The Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) includes
representatives from Washington Hospital Center, the US Attorney’s
Office, the MPD’s Sexual Assault Unit, the Office of Victim Services, the
US Park Police, and the D.C. Rape Crisis Center. According to the MPD’s
website,

SART is [a] partnership of public and private agencies that
work to coordinate a high-quality, multidisciplinary, victim/survivor-centered
response to sexual assault cases. This partnership allows for better
communications among all those involved in responding to the victim. It improves
the process for reporting and prosecuting cases.[104]

The team has had notable success in improving medical
treatment for survivors.[105]
However, one member noted, “It seems to me that in our efforts to improve
the treatment of and for victims of sexual assault, MPD is one of the biggest
obstacles.”[106]

Policy guidance governing the procedures and behaviors of
officers involved in sexual assault cases can be found in the MPD’s
General and Special Orders on Adult Sexual Assault Investigations and in the
MPD’s Standard Operating Procedures.[107]

These procedures contain no information on drug-facilitated
sexual assaults and do not discuss non-stranger rape, although most assaults
are committed by someone the victim knows.[108]
Nor is there mention of possible impact of trauma on victims. However, in other
respects, these policies are appropriately victim-centered. New policies,
discussed below, have been implemented since June 2012 in response to Human
Rights Watch recommendations. In large part, however, the problems documented
in this report do not appear to stem from MPD policy (though this should be reviewed
with a view towards improvement), but rather from police practice that is
inconsistent with it. This problematic behavior is detailed in the following
two sections.

Reforms Since 2008

In its responses to Human Rights Watch, the MPD described a
number of changes implemented since 2008 or currently in progress, including a
change in personnel from some of those who had been associated with the lawsuit
described in this report, the new improved SANE Program at Washington Hospital
Center, and some training initiatives.

The MPD also stated that it has “reemphasized its role
in the Sexual Assault Response Team” since 2008, embracing the
multidisciplinary approach to handling sexual assault investigations.[109]
It indicated it has increased its collection of specimens for drug-facilitated
sexual assault cases and stated that SAU detectives attended a training on drug-facilitated
sexual assaults at the US Attorney’s Office in June 2010.[110]
In addition, the MPD is in the process of developing a formal case review
process in which a panel of members will review, on a bi-weekly basis, all
cases which have been investigated and are not forwarded to the US
Attorney’s Office for prosecution. MPD is also developing a more
extensive selection process for detectives assigned to the SAU, including
assessing the candidates’ commitment to a multi-disciplinary and
victim-centered approach. An updated General Order that sets forth MPD policy
for handling sexual assault cases, cited throughout this report, was released
in August 2011. An analysis of the new order shows it is nearly identical in
substance to the 2006 General Order governing sexual assault investigations
that it replaced. The primary changes are: (1) reference to the “Command
Information Center,” (2) the SANE exams are conducted at Washington
Hospital Center instead of Howard University Hospital and a hospital hotline is
used to contact the on-duty SANE nurse, and (3) the Crime Scenes Investigations
Branch is now referred to as the Forensic Science Services Division.[111]
As with the previous policy, it stresses the importance of responding to and
investigating all sexual assaults and the need to be sensitive to the needs of
the victims and to provide victims with information and assistance.[112]
In addition, the unit has grown by three detectives since 2008, including two
detectives assigned to handle “cold cases.” New leadership has also
been added to the unit. References to these changes appear throughout this
report.

Since being informed of this report’s findings on May
30, the MPD has undertaken a number of significant additional reforms to its
handling of sex abuse cases. On June 8, 2012, the MPD issued a reminder to all
members of the police department that they are required to take an incident
report for “all alleged sexual assaults and assaults with sexual
overtones regardless of the circumstances” in accordance with police
policy.[113]

On June 12, 2012, Commander George Kucik of the Criminal
Investigations Division issued a division memorandum incorporating many of
Human Rights Watch’s recommended changes, including allowing victims a
sleep cycle prior to being re-interviewed; requiring that detectives respond to
complainants within two days of the complainant’s call; conducting
interviews in a comfortable environment; requiring a supervisor review of all
sexual abuse and sexual allegation cases at regular intervals, which will be
documented in WACIIS; requiring consultation with a supervisor about upgrading
classifications of allegations within 24 hours; requiring weekly audits of kits
at WHC to ensure the kits are picked up within three days of a sexual abuse
report; requiring monthly reviews with the commander, captain, and lieutenant
of open cases; and requiring commander review and approval of cases closed as
unfounded.

Victim Services is now required to expand its involvement
and offer services to all victims of sexual abuse, including cases that are
classified as allegations (or cases in which “the victim’s initial
report did not indicate all the elements of a sexual assault”). Victim
Services is also preparing a survey to provide victims with an opportunity to
rate police service, which will be reviewed by the commander. A copy of the
June 12, 2012 memorandum is attached as an appendix to this report.

On September 19, 2012, MPD’s Victims Services coordinator
informed Human Rights Watch that the unit’s caseload had indeed increased
“significantly” and they had received approval and funding to hire
two new staff members to work with sexual assault victims.[114]

On September 25 and 26, 2012, a nationally known forensic
nurse examiner conducted a joint training program for law enforcement, nurses,
and advocates.[115]

In addition, in September 2012, the MPD informed Human
Rights Watch that a mandatory sexual assault response training is being
developed for all members of the force, and the MPD has coordinated a
“sexual assault awareness campaign” targeted at the alcohol
establishments in the district. A number of prosecutors and others Human Rights
Watch spoke with felt that the new detectives were an improvement and that the
unit was getting better.[116]
Most would like to see more resources devoted to the unit.[117]
The SANE medical director said in October 2012 that, “In the last six
months, things are moving in the right direction and communication with the MPD
has really improved.”[118]
In late October, two victims reported that MPD agreed to reopen their cases in
response to their complaints about how their cases were handled; one received
an apology from a commander.

After receiving Human Rights Watch’s letter and
recommendation for a department of justice investigation on May 30, 2012, Chief
Lanier asked the Department of Justice for an independent review of its
handling of sexual assault cases.

On December 20, 2012, Chief Lanier
also indicated the SAU had undertaken the following reforms:

In 2012, MPD developed an online Sexual Abuse training course which
was mandated for all sworn members of the force.

MPD issued a directive to first responders to notify a Sexual
Abuse Unit detective whenever they respond to a scene where there are sexual
overtones.

MPD changed the process of collecting data in sexual assault
cases.

The Mayor’s Office of Victim Services has contracted with
paid advocates (Network for Victim Recovery of D.C.—NVRDC) to provide
resources to the victims of sexual abuse (formerly this was handled by
volunteers).

NVRDC provided training to all of the members of MPD’s
Sexual Assault Unit on the impact of trauma and proper approach to victims of
sexual assault.

MPD undertook a concerted outreach effort to provide victims
with resources including the launch of the UASK [119]
application, and meetings with the owners of ABC establishments [establishments
with liquor licenses] throughout the city to advise them of the prevalence of
sexual assaults that are related to their establishments.

That the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs
Diagnostic Center is currently working with MPD to do a gap analysis to
identify possible future changes that can improve our processes.[120]

MPD objected that “Human Rights Watch did not take the
time to find out about the impact of the outreach efforts described
above.”[121]
However, some of these initiatives are not new (police have been instructed to immediately
contact the SAU in sexual assault cases since at least 2006)[122]
and others, such as the decision to contract with NVRDC and the launch of UASK,[123]
are not police initiatives. However, any follow-up investigation undertaken by
Human Rights Watch will consider the results of these initiatives.

II. Police Failure to
Document and Investigate

Law Enforcement has a legal and moral obligation to
thoroughly investigate reports of suspected sexual abuse and to determine
whether a crime has been committed. This investigation must be carried out in a
professional and sensitive manner…. The detective must also realize that
the investigation may have a tremendous impact on the welfare of the victim as
well as the successful prosecution of the offender.

Cases [in D.C.] almost always end up dead in the water. I
have no belief cases will go forward.

—L.O., university
counselor, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2011

Human Rights Watch initiated
research into the MPD’s handling of sexual assault cases after observing
the unusually low numbers of sexual assaults that the MPD reported to the FBI.

Under the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program,
police departments voluntarily report statistics for certain crimes, including what
is termed in the program “forcible rape.” Until changes in 2012, the
definition of “forcible rape” used by the FBI was “carnal knowledge
of a female forcibly and against her will,” which is both outdated and most
importantly excludes a significant number of rapes and sexual assaults
(including drug or alcohol-facilitated sexual assault, sodomy, rape of men, and
statutory rape). Nevertheless, comparative numbers reported can still shed some
light on potential areas of concern.[124]

Only a small fraction of cities with a population of more
than 100,000 report more murders than rapes. Typically, rapes are reported at a
multiple of the murder rate; often more than four times as many rapes as
murders are reported in urban areas.[125]
Of the four cities where more murders than rapes were reported in recent years,
two (Baltimore and New Orleans) have already been the subject of investigations
that revealed police practices of

either not documenting sexual
assault cases or downgrading them to non-criminal offenses.[126] The District of Columbia, with a population of
approximately 600,000, reported the same number of rapes and murders in 2008
(186) and 7 more rapes than murders in 2009 (143 murders v. 150 rapes).[127]

MPD also reports “clearance rates” for rape that
are significantly higher than the FBI’s average. “Clearance”
refers to the disposition of a criminal case. Under the Uniform Crime Reporting
System possible dispositions include:

“Closed
by arrest” (when a person is arrested, charged with the commission of an
offense, and the case is presented to the court for prosecution);

“Exceptionally
closed” (when the offender is identified and enough evidence exists to
support an arrest, but the offender cannot be arrested for reasons beyond law
enforcement’s control).[128]

In 2010, the UCR average clearance for rape cases for cities
between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people was 40.6 percent. The clearance rate
reported by MPD for rape was 67.7 percent in 2007; 65.1 percent in 2008; 76.7
percent in 2009; and 59.8 percent in 2010.[129]
The high clearance rate and the relatively low number of reported rapes raise
questions because it may indicate selective documentation of cases. A 2010 National
Institute of Justice study found that in places where detectives were reporting
exceptionally high clearance rates, departments had found ways to
“dispose” of cases that they did not like and calculated the
clearance rates only on “good” cases.[130]

Members of the community who work on issues relating to
sexual assault shared with Human Rights Watch their concerns that MPD does not
investigate sexual assault cases.[131]
Advocates and medical staff recalled numerous instances where patients thought
they had reported a sexual assault but there was no record of it with MPD.[132]

Very few of the people interviewed by Human Rights Watch who
work with survivors could remember even one case that was successfully
prosecuted.[133] The
threshold for cases moving forward was described by one interviewee as
“very high, even if there are text messages, witnesses, an immediate
report and a clear memory.”[134] In order to get the police to investigate, another
witness told Human Rights Watch that the victims “have to give them a dog
and pony show.”[135]

The consequence of police disregarding a victim’s
report is simple and dire: a perpetrator will not be held to account. When
sexual assaults “disappear,” victims often feel a sense of betrayal
and distrust that can seriously damage their recovery from the sexual assault.

As the director of the Department of Justice Office of
Violence Against Woman stated, not counting sexual assault “send[s] an
appalling message to these victims that their crimes don’t count.”[136]

An artificial drop in reported crime numbers also denies the
public the right to know actual crime rates in their areas and distorts public
policy debates over allocating resources for law enforcement and victim
services. Since some studies show that sexual predators commit multiple
offenses before they are caught and jailed, it is especially important that
each case is investigated and evidence collected.[137]
Ultimately, community awareness— or perception— that police do not
take these crimes seriously also leads to victims being less willing to report
sexual assaults.[138]

Human Rights Watch found the following areas of concern with
respect to the MPD’s investigation of sexual assaults, each of which is
discussed below:

Over
one third of cases (35.4 percent) between 2009 and 2011 in which victims went
to Washington Hospital Center for a forensic exam and reported an assault to
the MPD could not be found as documented at all in MPD records.

An
additional 7 percent of the cases from the hospital that the MPD did document
were classified as for “office information only” and therefore not
investigated. Human Rights Watch found dozens of other sexual assault cases
placed in this category in police files, all of which were effectively closed
without any investigation apart from the initial complainant’s report.

Some
sexual assault cases in which another crime also occurred (such as burglary)
were not investigated as sexual assault cases at all. Other sexual assault
cases were classified as misdemeanors despite indicia of more serious offenses.

A
number of investigative files reviewed by Human Rights Watch revealed
incomplete investigations, a lack of supervisory review, and a high rate of
closures by the US Attorney’s Office because cases were considered too
weak. This suggests that the MPD’s high “clearance by arrest”
rate for sexual assaults may be a result of administrative closures rather than
arrests.

Missing Cases and the
PD-251s

MPD official policy is to file a report for all reported
crimes and incidents that come to its attention.[139]
Even if the reported event is not a crime (such as a lost wallet) or is not
within the MPD’s jurisdiction (for example, if the crime occurred in
Maryland), all incidents or crimes are supposed to be documented in an
incident/offense report, the PD-251.[140]

MPD General Orders (a set of
internal policy guidelines and rules for officers about investigating adult
sexual assault cases) dating from at least 2001 state that whenever an officer
responds to a call for service or is notified regarding a complaint of sexual
abuse, an incident report will be completed to document the complaint.[141] Incident reports are publicly available and contain
basic information about the location of the crime, the type of crime, the
victim, suspect, weapons used or property taken, as well as a brief narrative.[142]

According to the SAU’s Standard Operating Procedures,
“A PD-251 shall be included with every numbered sex abuse case.”[143]
PD-251s are also supposed to be prepared for complaints of sexual abuse that an
SAU member, after preliminary investigation, determines lack the criteria to be
considered sexual abuse (called “allegations”).[144]

A December 2006 directive for
handling sexual abuse cases states that the officer who arrives on scene shall,
“Prepare a PD Form 251 and request assistance from the SAU detective
regarding the proper classification.”[145] The PD-251 is supposed to be provided to the SAU
detective “by the end of the tour of duty.”[146] On June 8, 2012, the MPD issued a reminder to all
members of the police department that they are required to take an incident
report for “all alleged sexual assaults and assaults with sexual
overtones regardless of the circumstances” in accordance with police
policy.[147] The PD-251s are reviewed by the reporting officer
or detective’s supervisor.[148] All PD-251s are also subject to “staff
review.”[149]

If no PD-251 is prepared, no official record of the assault
exists in MPD.[150]
The database maintained by the police department, Washington Area Criminal Intelligence
Information System (WACIIS), contains information about calls to MPD for sexual
assaults. But, as one police source put it, “No PD-251, no
investigation.”[151]
When asked if an investigation should be conducted without one, Assistant Chief
Peter Newsham said that “the officer would be in trouble.”[152]

As part of its records request to the MPD, Human Rights
Watch asked for all PD-251 reports at MPD for adult sexual assault cases and
“allegations” (complaints of sexual abuse that an SAU member, after
preliminary investigation, determines lack the criteria to be considered sexual
abuse) from January 1, 2008 to 2011. We received responses to this request in
August and December of 2011 and April 2012. After we notified the MPD of the initial
findings in this report on May 30, 2012, the MPD provided us with over 1000
incident reports from 2008 through 2011, which they state is a complete set of
PD-251s. We have incorporated these reports into this analysis. In addition, in
June and August 2012, we reviewed the MPD’s WACIIS database to search for
missing cases that the MPD may not have classified as sexual abuse cases in its
system. This included “office information” or “miscellaneous”
cases, as well as cases for which no PD-251 was prepared. (See the sidebar for
a more detailed chronology of data collection from the MPD).

Through the Freedom of Information
Act, Human Rights Watch also requested and received records from the Office of
Victims Services (OVS), which oversees the SANE Program at Washington Hospital
Center (WHC), the only SANE center in the District of Columbia metro area.

The SANE program regularly reports to OVS the number of
forensic exams it administers. It further breaks that number down into those
who do not report an assault to the police, those who report their assault to
the police, and those for whom an exam was not performed though one was
initially requested (“exam exemptions”). Human Rights Watch
undertook this analysis after two sources informed us that in their efforts to
follow up on sexual assault reports with the MPD, they found no case number had
been assigned in a significant number of incidents in which the victim had
believe they had reported a sexual assault to the MPD.[153]

Because the nurses usually examine victims after law
enforcement speaks with them, they are able to record whether or not the victim
is reporting a case to police and which police department was contacted. Human
Rights Watch received dates of every sexual assault case seen by the unit for
fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011. We also reviewed a handwritten log kept by
nurses of reported sexual assaults from October 1, 2008, to November 30, 2009. And
we reviewed exam exemption forms that nurses prepare when a patient does not
undergo an exam for 2009-2011. These forms indicate whether or not the patient
is reporting their case to the police and often the name of the detective.

We coded each case based on whether the case resulted in a
report filed with the MPD, no report was filed, there was an exam exemption, or
whether there was no code or error in the records. Between October 1, 2008, and
September 30, 2011, WHC reported seeing 791 patients at their SANE program. Of
those, 260 patients did not report to the MPD, were exam exempt, or had an
unclear record. We removed these cases from our analysis. An additional 51
cases were marked as outside of the MPD’s jurisdiction and were also
excluded from the analysis.[154]
In total, we documented that 480 patients, at least, reported their assault to
the MPD according to WHC for the time period examined.

In
response to a summary of our report, the MPD, in June 2012, described five
instances in which police would not be required to make a report. They
included:

A case in which a complainant
described an assault that occurred 24 years ago, beyond the 15-year statute
of limitations;

Two cases in which the
victims decided not to report after speaking with detectives at WHC;

An incident in which a victim
stated she was harassed by a man who said she looked like a man but did not
disclose a sexual assault;

And a case in which the police
were called to a scene of a family disturbance but were told when they
arrived that there was no assault, but that the parties were arguing.

However,
none of these cases would have been included in Human Rights Watch’s
analysis of missing cases. The only cases compared to MPD PD-251s were cases
in which the victim went to Washington Hospital Center for an exam and
reported their assault to the police. Cases in which the victim reported an
event outside the window for a forensic exam would be excluded from the
comparison, as would cases in which the police indicated the victim did not
go to the hospital for a forensic exam.

Human Rights Watch compared the
dates of the 480 sexual assaults reported to the MPD from Washington Hospital
Center to the dates on the PD-251s to determine which of the cases reported
from the hospital showed a match to an MPD incident report.[155] Human Rights Watch included in its count of police
reports all PD-251s for any case that could have gone to the hospital, including
attempted assaults with no penetration, allegations of sexual abuse,
misdemeanors with significant bodily contact, other types of sexual assault
that could potentially have resulted in a forensic exam, and cases without a
clear classification.

Cases in which the police clearly
indicated that the patient refused medical treatment or that medical attention
was “not applicable” were excluded from the analysis, as were
misdemeanors in which contact was minimal (such as a slapped bottom or a pinch)
for which a forensic exam was unlikely.[156] Cases outside the time frame were also excluded
from the analysis.

Between October 1, 2008, and
September 30, 2011, Human Rights Watch found 183 police files clearly marked as
having originated at Washington Hospital Center.[157] For an additional 216 files, it was unclear from
the information available whether the victim went to Washington Hospital
Center. These PD-251s were included in the analysis. Because police are
required to fill out a PD-251 on their shift and they meet victims at the
hospital when they have an exam, it can be expected that a PD-251 for each case
will be filed within one day of the hospital report for that case.[158] Therefore, if the dates of a PD-251 corresponded
within one day to an exam, we deemed the incidents a match.[159]

We found that between October 2008 and September 2011, for at
least 35 percent of victims whom Washington Hospital Center documented as
having sought a forensic exam and reported their assault to the MPD while at
the hospital, there was no corresponding case recorded in a PD-251 within one
day of the exam. There were 310 matches between cases documented at Washington
Hospital Center and available PD-251s. For 170 cases in which Washington
Hospital Center recorded a victim as having reported an assault to the MPD, we
could find no corresponding record at the MPD within one day.

Thus a comparison of hospital reports shows only 64.5
percent of hospital reports can be linked by date to a PD-251. Of those cases,
thirty-four were classified in police records as “office
information” which, according to police policy, means they were not
investigated.[160]
Therefore, the documents indicate that a total of 204 out of 480 reports (42.5
percent) were not documented or investigated by the MPD.

Of the 276 cases that were documented and investigated, 227
(82.2 percent) were classified as first or second degree sex abuse or assault
with intent to commit first degree sexual abuse. An additional 41 (14.9
percent) were classified as sex abuse allegations, which means the detective
considered it unclear whether an assault occurred. The remaining eight cases
were classified as other crimes.

We also compared the total number
of hospital reports to MPD to the total number of PD-251s the MPD provided to us.
The total number of PD-251s prepared by MPD should be significantly higher each
month than the number of victims who report at the hospital. All those who
reported to the MPD at the hospital should have a PD-251. In addition, the MPD’s
total number of PD-251s should include victims who report a sexual assault
without having a forensic exam at Washington Hospital Center, such as: victims
who walk-in and report a sexual assault to the department without going to the
hospital; victims who report more than 96 hours after their assault (past the
window for exams); victims who report at other hospitals or are examined by
their own doctors; and those who decide for one of many reasons not to get an
exam at all (such as they know their assailant, do not want to undergo a
lengthy invasive procedure, or do not feel it is necessary because there was no
penetration). It is likely that many survivors of sexual assault in D.C. never
undergo a forensic exam, even if they report the assault to the police. One
study in Los Angeles showed that only half of victims who reported a sexual
assault to the police in that city underwent a
forensic exam.[161] Similarly, Human Rights Watch’s analysis of forensic
evidence kits in Illinois over a 10-year period found that only 31 percent of
reported rapes resulted in the administration of a forensic evidence kit in
that state.[162] A Department of Justice document cites research
finding that nationwide only 59 percent of all victims choosing to report the
victimization to law enforcement receive medical treatment.[163] Based on these trends, one would expect the total
number of police reports for sexual assaults to be notably greater than the
number of hospital reports.

Human Rights Watch is not able to
determine from publicly available information how many victims attempt to
report to the police outside of the context of Washington Hospital Center. However,
assuming the Washington Hospital Center data is correct, 436 victims had exams
and reported to the MPD in the three-year period analyzed by Human Rights Watch
(excluding 44 cases in which the victim reported to the MPD at the hospital but
did not have an exam). Over the same time period, MPD has 571 incident reports
(including 173 police reports showing that the victim did not go to a hospital
or went to a hospital other than Washington Hospital Center that were excluded
from the date comparison analysis). Even if all the hospital reports were
accounted for at MPD, the number is still far lower than expected. If the
national study is correct and approximately 59 percent of people who report
have forensic exams, the number of MPD reports for sexual assault for that period
would be expected to be approximately 739 cases.

Finally, graphing the monthly
number of reports produces the surprising result that in some months the hospital
recorded more sexual assault reports to the MPD than the total number of sexual
assaults the MPD had documented for the same month. For example, in May 2009,
the hospital reported three more sexual assault cases than the MPD documented
for the entire month. In October 2009, October 2010, and May 2011, the hospital
reported one more case each month than the police documented. In 4 of 36
months, the police and hospital reported the same number of assaults. Because
many victims do not get exams, the police should always have more cases than
the hospital. This data suggests a significant number of sexual assaults (even
apart from those noted at the hospital) may not be documented at all.

In Chief Lanier’s December
20, 2012 letter responding to these findings, she indicates she has “1500
WACIIS [database] reports” for the time frame analyzed and indicates that
this database is the correct basis for determining appropriateness of the
police response to victims at the hospital. However, a WACIIS report alone,
with no corresponding PD 251 incident report and no case number, indicates that
this complaint, although received by the department, was not opened for
investigation. As Assistant Chief Newsham told Human Rights Watch in a June 14,
2012 meeting, an officer would be “in trouble” for investigating a
case with no case number. Because Human Rights Watch’s focus is whether
cases reported to the police from victims who had sought medical treatment at Washington
Hospital Center were then investigated effectively, the existence of a database
entry without a case number would not affect our findings. Nonetheless, when
MPD raised this objection in June 2012, as described below, Human Rights Watch
undertook repeated efforts to locate cases in WACIIS that may not have had
incident reports prepared. Any entry found that corresponded to a missing case
was included in the analysis, even if there was no case number.

Moreover, Chief Lanier states that
the MPD sent Human Rights Watch 1080 PD-251s and therefore 571 is not the
appropriate number to use to estimate the total number of reported sexual
assaults in D.C. Over the course of the document production, the MPD actually
provided Human Rights Watch with 1358 different incident reports. However, 787
of those cases either (1) were outside of the time frame used for this analysis
(317); (2) were not sexual abuse cases or involved sexual contact, often over
clothing, such as groping a breast, that would not result in a forensic exam
(353); or (3) were reports of juvenile offenses and therefore would not involve
Washington Hospital Center or the SAU (117). These cases are therefore
irrelevant for comparison to cases that did have a forensic exam. Accordingly,
they were excluded from the analysis. For date comparison purposes, an
additional 173 cases were excluded because the report indicated clearly that the
victim did not go to the hospital or went to a hospital other than WHC.

A 2008 lawsuit filed against the MPD
by a victim who attempted to report an assault (see Rachel’s box) revealed
the MPD practice at the time of giving SAU detectives discretion to decide
whether they should file an incident report. Police officers, supervisors, and
detectives gave deposition testimony about this practice—which was
inconsistent with the official policy of documenting all reports of sexual
abuse.[164] A supervisor testified in 2008, “It [filing a
report] is all dependent on what the sexual assault unit detective or
supervisor wants to do.”[165] If the detective advises not to take a report, the
officers follow their instructions.[166] An officer said a report must be taken “Only
… if a sergeant or somebody demands that you take a report, then the
official above the detective demands you take the report, yes, go ahead and
take the report.”[167] Then, as now, police practice requires that when an
officer responds to a scene of a complaint of sexual assault, he or she notifies
an SAU detective.[168] The detective then decides if a report should be
taken by determining whether a case is “founded” or
“unfounded.”[169] “Unfounding,” as described by officers
in deposition testimony, refers to decisions detectives make on the spot
without investigating whether or not they will open a case.[170]

An officer explained that SAU
detectives had directed him not to take a report if “they feel it’s
not credible, [the complainant] can’t prove anything.”[171] A former supervisor in the SAU said that
“sometimes” they investigated cases when they did not believe the
complainant.[172] In cases where officers or detectives were unsure
if something happened but an allegation of a sexual assault was made, a
detective testified that there was no requirement for further investigation.[173]

According to depositions in the 2008 case, a decision not to
write a report on an “unfounded” case of sex abuse was common at
the time.[174]

Documentation of cases seems to
have improved since 2008, and it is not clear whether in practice such
discretion, albeit not in keeping with official policy, is still afforded to
detectives. Even if detective discretion is not an issue, the above data
analysis shows that a substantial number of cases remain undocumented, raising
questions about if, when, and by whom, decisions are taken not to file reports
of every assault reported, despite department policy.

Human Rights Watch has been informed that the officers
involved in the 2008 lawsuit were transferred out of the SAU, and Chief Cathy
Lanier informed Human Rights Watch about one patrol officer who was disciplined
in 2010 for not taking a report of an assault after a victim complained. But
Human Rights Watch has been unable to obtain any further information about
current disciplinary measures taken against officers if they do not adhere to
policies requiring reports for all incidents of sexual assault.[175]

In addition, although Human Rights Watch would have expected
to see significant changes after and in response to the flawed practices
revealed in the 2008 lawsuit, the experience of victims and those who work with
survivors in the community and documentary evidence collected and reviewed from
the Office of Victim Services and the MPD suggest that behavior reflected in
the depositions persists among some detectives.

One police insider provided a possible explanation for the
continuing failure to document some cases: “You get disciplined for
paperwork. Thus less paper trail, less chance you have of getting in
trouble.”[176]

The apparent failure of some police
to adhere to policy requiring documentation of all incidents reported does not
appear to be linked to a shortage of staff. According to a February 2012 letter
from the MPD, the SAU (referred to as the “Sex Squad”) detectives
had 23 cases each in calendar year 2010 and the “ideal case load”
per detective is three monthly, or 36 per calendar year.[177] Other police departments (in Florida and Oregon)
report an average caseload of at least 54 to 96 sexual assault or major crimes
per year per detective.[178]

On June 8, 2012, the date of the MPD’s
response to Human Rights Watch’s letter, the MPD issued a reminder to
police to document all complaints of sexual assault.[179]

On April 20, 2011, as part of its records request,
Human Rights Watch asked the MPD for all PD-251s for adult sexual assault
cases and “allegations” (complaints of sexual abuse that an SAU
member, after preliminary investigation, determines lack the criteria to be
considered sexual abuse) from January 1, 2008 to 2011. We received partial
responses to this request in August and December of 2011 and, after repeated
follow-up requests, a supplemental response in April 2012.

On May 30, 2012, Human Rights Watch informed the
MPD that it was unable to locate incident reports for a significant number of
cases in which the victim had gone to WHC for a forensic exam and reported
their assault to the MPD.

Between May 31 and June 8, Human Rights Watch
received an extensive production of all PD-251s for sex abuse cases from the
MPD. Many were duplicates of the previous production. Human Rights Watch
incorporated the new PD-251s into its data analysis.

On June 14, Human Rights Watch met with Chief Cathy
Lanier, Assistant Chief Peter Newsham, and Sergeant Ronald Reid and shared
the results of the revised data analysis with them. Even after including the
new PD-251s in the analysis, Human Rights Watch could not find police reports
corresponding to 149 WHC cases recorded as reporting sexual assaults to the
MPD over a three-year period. At that time, Chief Lanier offered to allow
Human Rights Watch to view MPD’s internal database (the WACIIS) in
order to locate missing cases, as some cases (“miscellaneous”
cases, “office information” cases, or cases that also included
another crime such as burglary) may not have been classified in the system as
sex abuse cases and thus may have fallen outside the scope of our document
request.

On June 19, senior Human Rights Watch staff went to
the MPD to examine entries to the WACIIS database to try to identify possible
missing cases with MPD members. At that time, Human Rights Watch provided the
MPD with a list of the 149 dates for which documentation of hospital cases
was missing. The MPD agreed to send incident reports for any case that might
correspond with cases for which we were missing documentation.

On June 22, Human Rights Watch sent the MPD a list
of case numbers that we believed might correspond to missing hospital
reports. We developed the list based on notes from our June 19 review of the
WACIIS database with the MPD.

On June 22, July 5, and July 19, Human Rights Watch
received additional productions of incident reports and documents from the
MPD. These documents completed the MPD’s production of reports
resulting from the June 19 database review and included a small number of
incident reports previously excluded because they had been illegible.

On July 20, Human Rights Watch’s counsel sent
MPD a list of 34 cases produced by MPD that did not appear linked to a
hospital report to see if internal records indicated a hospital visit not
apparent on the cover sheet. MPD agreed to allow Human Rights Watch to review
those 34 case files as part of the August investigative file review process
resulting from the settlement agreement.

From August 21 through August 23, 3 Human Rights
Watch staff members reviewed 148 case files from the WACIIS database in
addition to 25 of the 34 cases mentioned above (8 cases were not in WACIIS
and were not relevant to the analysis). Human Rights Watch agreed to take
handwritten notes on the files and was not allowed to remove documentation
from the office. Human Rights Watch agreed to keep the names of victims, witnesses,
and suspects confidential. The cases reviewed included cases about which
Human Rights Watch had questions, as well as cases in which Human Rights
Watch had interviewed the victim. In addition, Human Rights Watch randomly
selected a number of cases representing different sex abuse charges. The
settlement agreement also provided Human Right Watch the opportunity to
review 88 sex abuse case files from 2009 to 2011 that were in the WACIIS
database but had not been assigned case numbers and thus did not have
incident reports.

Human Rights Watch was able to determine from reviewing
files whether or not the victim had a forensic exam at Washington Hospital
Center. We therefore included in the data analysis those cases in which the
victim did have an exam, regardless of whether they were classified as sex
abuse cases or assigned case numbers. In addition, Human Rights Watch
discovered that some cases that had previously been credited as police report
matches to hospital reports because of the report date were not, in fact,
linked to a hospital report. Accordingly, we corrected those classifications
in the final data analysis.[180]

Human Rights Watch also received case cover sheets from
the 148 selected cases. In some cases, the cover sheets showed that the
police had picked up a forensic exam indicating that the victim went to WHC. We
cross-referenced that information with the data used for the analysis of
missing cases, though the cover sheets were not always comprehensive so notes
from the file were considered authoritative if they indicated the victim went
to WHC, even if the cover sheet did not record picking up the forensic exam.

On September 6, Human Rights Watch informed the MPD
that it was Human Rights Watch’s understanding that we had all the
relevant documents. The MPD provided no further documentation of incident
reports to Human Rights Watch.

On December 6, 2012, Human Rights Watch informed
the MPD of the results of the third data analysis and provided the department
with an opportunity to respond to its findings. On December 20, 2012, the MPD
responded to the revised finding.

Rachel G.’s
Lawsuit Against the MPD

In 2008, Rachel G. commenced a lawsuit against the
Metropolitan Police Department over the MPD’s treatment of her when she
reported a potential sexual assault in December 2006. At the time, Rachel was
a 19-year-old college student, who had attended an off-campus party with a
few friends.

When the lights came on after dancing, Rachel’s
friends noticed that she and the person who had been dancing with her
aggressively were gone. After calling Rachel’s cell phone and searching
for her unsuccessfully, Rachel’s friends convinced a man providing
security during the party and blocking people from going upstairs to look for
her.

Eventually, Rachel appeared at the top of the steps
looking “out of it” and barely able to walk. She began vomiting
profusely. Rachel said that someone had touched her while she was upstairs.
Concerned that she had been drugged and raped, her friends took her to the
hospital where staff told her to sleep it off and return the next day.

The next day Rachel woke up with pain in her rectum and
hip and returned to the hospital, where she reported her assault to the
police. The responding uniformed officer took down some information and then
called an SAU detective who spent “two or three minutes, if that”
on the phone with her.[181]
During the course of litigation, the detective testified, “She told me
that she was at a party. And she remembered kissing a guy.... I repeated back
to her what she said to me. And there was a pause.” The detective said
he told the officer on scene, “This young lady, she’s not
reporting anything, she’s not reporting a crime to me. I’m not
bringing a sex kit up here.”[182]

The detective did not ask for details about what happened
or why Rachel wanted a forensic exam if what she was reporting was that she
just kissed someone.[183]
Later, Rachel testified in her deposition that she told the detective she had
been raped, but he informed her that “I would not be able to receive a
sex kit because I do not know the person[’s] … last name.” The
responding officer left without filing a report.[184] The detective did
not bring a rape kit to the hospital.

When Rachel’s sister arrived at the hospital she
could not understand why a report was not made. She called 911 twice and
waited for more than an hour before two officers came. Rachel testified that
the responding officers questioned her as if she were lying. “[They]
were barking at me,” she said. “They did nothing … to help
me or to even try to make me feel like they would help me.”[185]

Rachel’s sister also testified that the officers
were “short and rude” and “I was trying just to ask them
some simple questions about the procedure…. I was told … that
they were no longer going to answer any questions from me.… I felt like
if I was going to ask more questions [that] they were going to, like, try to
detain me.… And I didn’t want any trouble with the police.”[186]

When the officers called the SAU, the detective on duty
(who consulted with his supervisor) told them that no investigation would be
opened and no forensic exam authorized. [187]
The detective told his supervisor that Rachel was “making up stories to
the uniform officer so the sex kit can be performed.”[188]
The supervisor determined, based on statements from the complainant as
relayed by the responding officer to the detective, that no crime was
committed so there was no need to begin an investigation or for the detective
to interview the complainant personally.[189]The unit supervisor later reiterated that
his decision was correct, testifying, “blacking out is not a
crime.”[190] The
officers did write a “miscellaneous” report, which the SAU
supervisor testified was meant to “cover” them.[191]The report reads:

C1 [the complainant] reported to both officers on the
scene she attended a house party at the listed location and doesn’t
know if anything happened to her. C1 reports she blacked out. C1 was informed
that a report could not be taken based on the statement she thinks something
happened. Then C1 stated she went into the bathroom and a guy followed her in
there and touched her breast and private parts and then she blacked out. C1
was asked what do you mean by private parts and C1 stated her rectum hurts.
C1 stated she went from one extreme to another so someone had to put
something in her drink, then C1 changed her story and said ‘I was
drunk.’ C1 was then advised that in order to take a report, I have [to]
have something concrete and not have any guesses. C1 then said she only
wanted to have a sex kit done to see if anything happened….[192]

After nearly a full day of waiting for an exam at the
first hospital, Rachel left and sought medical care at another hospital
having still not showered, gone to the bathroom, or had much to eat, as the
hospital had advised.

After waiting uncomfortably for hours at the other
hospital, Rachel was told she could not get a forensic exam because she had
been denied one earlier by the primary SANE provider in the area and because
the police had already ruled it out. Rachel also talked to another SAU
detective who informed her she could not help because her case was closed.[193]
The next day Rachel tried to get a forensic exam in Maryland, but was turned
away because the assault had occurred in the District of Columbia.

Rachel and her family complained to the MPD about how she
was treated by responding officers. Despite the civilian complaint,
supervisors did not question the officers about the incident, discipline
them, or speak with them about the decision not to take a report.[194]The department did not sustain the
complaint and the incident did not go on the officers’ records.[195]

Chief Lanier informed Human Rights Watch that she did
transfer some detectives involved in this case out of the SAU at the end of
2008. Policy changes have since made it clear that police authorization is
not required for a forensic exam.

Rachel’s suit against the MPD was dismissed in
August 2010 under the public duty doctrine, which gives police immunity from
civil lawsuits. In granting the police motion, the court noted,
“Unfortunately, this is not the first instance where the MPD is accused
of acting with regrettable indifference to potential crime victims.”[196]Rachel has appealed the dismissal. A
lawsuit that Rachel also filed against the hospitals is pending.

Stopping the
Investigation Before it Begins

Investigators serve as prosecutor, judge, and jury and stop
the process before it begins.

I was shocked to hear that under Sharia law, a rape victim
has to have four witnesses to the rape in order to have her case prosecuted.
Then I realized it was not so different in D.C. because the standard seems so
high for cases to move forward.

—L.O., university
counselor, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2011

Police use a variety of mechanisms to shut down the
possibility of further investigation of cases they do not deem credible. Our
review of police investigative files confirmed witness observations that police
consider a number of cases “unfounded” as early as the initial
interview with the complainant. Some of these cases may not be documented at
all. Other sex abuse cases may fall through the cracks if they are classified as
a non-sex offense or as a less serious crime.

A number of sex abuse cases that Human
Rights Watch examined were considered “office information” or
“miscellaneous” cases, which means they were closed without
investigation. In addition, several MPD cases were categorized as crimes other
than sex offenses or were considered “misdemeanors,” although they
appear to be more serious sex abuse cases. Some victims raised questions about
their cases being classified as a non-sex abuse case or a
“miscellaneous” case despite their complaint of sexual assault. The
reason for the classification is unclear in the files and raises questions
regarding the effectiveness of review.

“Reported and Sex
Crimes Closing”

The practice of closing the case immediately after an
initial interview is particularly troubling because the victim is frequently
traumatized during the initial interview (particularly if it immediately
follows the assault) and therefore may not be able to concentrate or respond
rationally.[197]

Inconsistencies in statements are
a foreseeable symptom of trauma, yet one officer testified in 2008 that a
decision not to take a report may be based on the victim’s changing of
his or her story after speaking with the responding officers.[198] Police investigative files from 2009 through 2011
show a similar reluctance to investigate cases when a victim statement contains
inconsistencies (this is discussed further in section IV, on police treatment
of victims).[199]

The police practice of deciding
not to investigate a case after speaking to a victim at the hospital has been sufficiently
common that the “exam exemption” forms nurses at WHC use to
document cases in which the victim has decided not to get an exam include an
option for nurses to check that reads: “Reported and sex crimes not
investigating,” or “Reported and sex crimes closing,” or
“Reported and sex crimes investigating/not investigating.”[200] A number of entries in the hospital log and on
these forms for the years 2009 through 2011 indicate that the patient reported
but the police were not investigating.[201] In some cases in which it was unclear whether or
not a victim was assaulted, police files indicate recommending unfounding the
case for lack of corroborating evidence before even picking up the forensic
exam from the hospital, though the exam could possibly shed light on the
question of whether or not a sexual assault occurred.[202]

Other indicia that police still
repeatedly make decisions not to investigate reports appear in meeting minutes.
Notes from an April 2009 SART meeting indicate frustration by nurses that,
“Often they do not know why the MPD has decided not to investigate a
case.” And both police and nurses “are concerned about what to do
in cases where MPD has decided not to investigate further and the victim still
wants an exam. This kit isn’t a non-report because it is associated with
a [complaint], but MPD is not planning to pursue the case.”[203]

The SANE director from July 2008 to
December 2009 described the practice that she witnessed as the detectives
trying to determine on the spot if it was a case they could win.[204] Some observers who have seen officers respond to
sexual assault victims since 2008 also believe that some detectives act as if
the burden of proof is higher for victims who are not injured or hysterical.[205] In their experience, they also believe that cases
of digital or oral penetration are taken less seriously.[206]

In April
2011, Maya T., a 37-year-old woman visiting D.C. from Virginia, reported
being abducted and locked in a small room with nothing but a bucket to use as
a toilet for three days. During that time, two men raped and sodomized her.
While in captivity, she found a cell phone and managed to call 911. The fire
department had to break down a door, padlocked from the outside, to reach
her. An ambulance took Maya to the hospital where two SAU detectives met her.

Though she
was feeling drugged and unwell, the detectives demanded a detailed timeline
of what happened at the hospital. When she had difficulty responding, a
detective told her she was “wasting their time” and
“lying.” He asked her if she “knew what penalty a false
report brought” and said that he “didn’t even want to file
it.”[208] He said the suspects told
different stories from hers and that “no one would believe” her.

The
other detective made a number of insulting remarks to Maya during the
interview, commenting on her ability to speak Spanish and her body and
implying that she wanted to return to the place where she was assaulted
because her assailant was bringing her food. After the interview, the
detectives did not open an investigation but instead filed a
“miscellaneous” report or “office information.”[209]

Maya tried
to contact the detective to give a statement two days later, when she felt
more stable, but he refused to hear it. He said that her case was a
“miscellaneous report” and that she had “had consensual
sex” with the men. He refused her effort to turn over physical evidence
(the suspect’s cell phone, which she used to make the call). When she
asked about her forensic exam, the detective said, “Rape kit? What rape
kit?”[210]

A review
of the investigative file indicated that Maya’s impression that the
police took the suspects at their word was correct. The initial report did
not include much of Maya’s account of what happened but rather
indicated she was kept in a locked room with her consent (the suspect
indicated that they both locked the door from the inside and out because the
landlord would charge extra rent if he saw her).

The notes
indicate Maya called the police when she “felt caged in.” It said
Maya “could not keep her story straight” and that she “had
been having consensual intercourse with this guy and that he had been feeding
her” and that “she did not scream or holler.” (The report
also noted, however, that she was found “yelling” from upstairs
and informed officers on the scene that she had been forced to have sex
against her will for the last three days). The detective closed the case as
unfounded at the time of his interview with Maya.[211]

The MPD
investigated the case only after Maya hired an attorney to follow up and
complain about how she was treated. Further investigation revealed
information consistent with Maya’s account (the suspects confirmed she
was left in a room with only a bucket as a toilet and had little or no food
during her stay, only alcohol, and there was no inside doorknob for her to
“lock herself in;” the 911 call transcript indicated she reported
being kidnapped, raped, and possibly drugged). The case stalled when
detectives refused to allow Maya to have her lawyer with her for a photo
line-up “in order to keep the process pure.”[212] Senior prosecutors interviewed for
this report knew of no policy or reason preventing a victim’s lawyer
from being present for a photo line-up.[213]

“Office
Information” Cases

Human Rights Watch found that for
a number of cases in which a victim reported a sexual assault to the police,
the complaint was taken as “office information.” (Police sometimes
further classify these cases as “miscellaneous” or “sick [or
injured] person to hospital” but they still fall under the general broad
category of cases documented only for “office information”).

Under the MPD guidelines, a complaint of sexual abuse can be
deemed an office information after preliminary investigation by a member of the
Sexual Assault Unit, when it involves any of the following: “an arrest of
a sex offender in another jurisdiction; a report of an offense that occurred in
another jurisdiction (information that can possibly be used in the future);
sexual activity that is not a crime; and no crime was deemed to have
occurred.”[214]
An incident report is supposed to be prepared for these cases, even if the
crime occurred in another jurisdiction but the victim went to a hospital in the
District of Columbia. However, these cases are “closed by definition.”
If further investigation is needed, it “should be classified as an
‘allegation’ and handled accordingly.”[215]

In Rachel G.’s case, for example, a responding officer
testified that a miscellaneous (office information) report was filed in her
case because “it was determined that no sexual assault took place,”[216]
and that the report was meant to “cover” the officers.[217]
In other cases, “office information” is used when the victim does
not wish to report a crime at the time. In our data analysis, Human Rights Watch
found five “office information” cases that matched cases at the
hospital in which victims had a forensic exam but chose not to report their
assault to the police at the time (“non-reports”). However, 34
cases in which the victim did report at the hospital fell into the
“office information” category.

Overall, Human Rights Watch reviewed a total of 125 sex
abuse cases documented as “office information” between 2009 and
2011, including 82 cases in MPD’s database that were classified as
“office information” for which no case number was assigned and no
incident report (PD-251) prepared, contrary to internal guidelines. In most
office information cases Human Rights Watch reviewed, the information in the
file was limited to detective notes from the initial interview with the
complainant, but in a few instances the file contained additional interviews or
investigation.

If officers believe that there is not enough information to
substantiate filing an incident as a sex crime case (an SX case) they can file
a sexual abuse “allegation” (an SA case) rather than an office
information. An allegation “is a complaint of sexual abuse when… after
preliminary investigation by an SAU member, a determination is reached that the
investigation lacks the criteria of a sexual abuse offense.”[218]
An allegation is supposed to be investigated until it is upgraded to a case,
closed as “unfounded,” or until investigative leads have been
exhausted.[219]
Cases might be considered allegations in MPD’s Standard Operation
Procedures, among other situations, when there are inconsistencies that require
follow up, or when the complainant: provides contradictory statements, had sex
but is unsure if a crime occurred, is unresponsive, is too intoxicated to talk,
or is referred from another jurisdiction.[220]
Such categorization is appropriate if it is tracked and carefully reviewed by a
well-trained supervisor who can ensure there is follow-up victim contact.[221]

While a number of reports reviewed by Human Rights Watch
were classified appropriately, other sexual assault cases outside of the official
“office information” categories were still classified as
“miscellaneous” or “sick person to hospital” and for
“office information” only. In these cases, minimal, if any,
investigation was done.

For example, in the following cases a victim reported a
sexual assault but the detective notes indicate the victim was too intoxicated
to be interviewed at the hospital. Although police policy indicates that a case
in which a complainant is too intoxicated to talk or is unresponsive at the
time of the report is to be considered an allegation until it is investigated
further, these cases were listed as office information cases and from examining
the documentation, it would appear as if no follow up was done. In some of
these cases, no case number was assigned and no incident report was prepared:

An
April 2009 case in which the complainant reported that the subject tried to
rape her but did not say how. The complainant was under the influence and had
to be woken with an ammonia capsule to be interviewed at the hospital. The case
was filed as “office information” because “The complainant
did not report a sexual assault.” The police file contained no indication
of follow-up.[222]

A
May 2009 case in which the complainant was found intoxicated on the sidewalk
stating she was raped. She was “highly intoxicated” at the time of
the interview. The report indicates “follow up: None,” even though
the complainant was taken to the hospital.[223]

An
October 2011 case in which the victim was still intoxicated and refused to talk
when detectives interviewed her at the hospital. The file notes that after
providing basic information about her rape, the victim walked out of the quiet
room (the designated room at WHC where detective’s interviews take place).
A rape kit was completed, but the case was listed as “miscellaneous”
and there is no indication of follow-up in the report.[224]

An
April 2009 case in which notes indicate that “throughout the interview
the complainant was slurring her speech and falling asleep. The complainant
appeared to be under the influence … she was unable to focus on the
interview and continued to fall asleep.” Yet no indication of an
additional interview when the complainant was coherent appears in the file. The
case was not assigned a case number.[225]

As in Rachel G.’s case, a number of the cases Human
Rights Watch reviewed that were assigned to the category of cases “closed
by definition” involved drug or alcohol use.

Misclassification is also
problematic because, since “office information” or “miscellaneous”
reports (unlike allegations) are not considered sexual assault cases, the MPD
takes no precaution to hide the victim’s name. Publicly available
incident reports initially provided to Human Rights Watch in response to its
public records request included personal information for victims in some of the
cases listed below.[226] This raises serious concerns about victim privacy. In
addition, until June 2012, police did not refer victims of cases considered
allegations or office information to an MPD’s victim specialist for
support services.

The following are some of the office information cases Human
Rights Watch reviewed (we describe more in the section on drug or alcohol
facilitated assaults below):

An
early 2010 case in which a student reported that she was forced to orally
copulate a stranger in an alley after a night of drinking. No investigation was
done apart from a victim interview, but the detective’s internal report
concludes, “There is nothing to corroborate the complainant’s
alleged allegations.” The document review indicates that the detective
did not prepare an incident report or assign the report a case number. The
victim had a forensic exam, but there is no indication of follow-up on possible
forensic evidence.[227]

A
May 2010 case in which the complainant was intoxicated and outside a club when a
suspect told her if she did not go with him she would be raped. He then took
her in a car with a group of four other men who called her friends and told
them they would rape her if they did not come and get her. The subject then
called another friend of the complainant and told her the complainant was being
raped at the time. The victim was taken to the hospital by ambulance after
police were contacted. An SAU detective met her and her friends there. She was
still intoxicated and did not recall details of what happened to her in the
car. For follow up, the detective notes say, “[Complainant] was provided
with a business card and was advised that a record of the interview would be made
[sic] in the department’s database.” The case was classified as “office
information.” The file contains no indication of further investigation,
follow up, or of results from the forensic exam, until nine months later (March
2011) when a supervisor recommended that the case be reopened.[228]

The case of Maya T. (see text box) whom the
fire department rescued in April 2011 from a room that was padlocked from the
outside. Police did not open an investigation at the time but instead filed a “miscellaneous”
report that read, “C-1 reports she was locked in a room for three days
and made to have sexual intercourse. Investigation revealed that C-1 had agreed
to stay in the room until the residence [sic] returned home from work and the
sex was consensual.” Maya’s name and address are on the report.[229]
In addition, the detective closed the case as “unfounded” at the
time of the report.[230]

A February 2011 case in which the victim was
highly intoxicated and throwing up at a party. Afterwards, her dress was on
inside out and her panties and pantyhose were off. The complainant had a
forensic exam but the detective notes the “kit was turned over to mobil [sic]
crime as no case.”[231]
It was classified as “miscellaneous.”

A PD-251 describes a victim who reported a
sexual assault but was in and out of consciousness and unable to provide
details. Her name, address, and phone number appear on the publicly available
report.[232]

A
PD-251 in which the complainant reports she went to a party, got drunk, and
went to sleep. When she woke up she felt she had been vaginally penetrated and
also believed “she received oral sex while a pillow was being pressed
against her face.” Her personal information is on the PD-251.[233]

An
October 2011 miscellaneous report in which the complainant reports that
“an unknown male (S-1) ‘pulled his penis out and shoved it in
vaginally.’”[234] The victim’s identifying
information is on the event report.

An
October 2010 miscellaneous report from a victim who went to the hospital for a
forensic exam after a night drinking at a club. The form indicates, “An
incident report is needed because R-1 [the complainant] responded to WHC on her
own and completed a sex kit.”[235] Her identifying information
appears on the incident report.

In only one of the above cases was there an indication in
the database that a supervisor requested additional investigation from the
detective. Of 88 sex abuse cases between 2009 and 2011 that Human Rights Watch reviewed
that were not assigned case numbers at all, the database file noted supervisor
review for only 4 cases, though it is possible that review took place and was
not noted in the police database. Of 43 office information case files reviewed
by Human Rights Watch that had case numbers assigned to them, only 11 had
indications of supervisor review. Five of those were in relation to warrant
requests, four of which were rejected.[236]

Even cases that are documented as “allegations” sometimes
languish without investigation. For example:

In
late 2011, after consuming a “double shot” of alcohol, a victim
reported waking up to find an unknown male engaging in vaginal intercourse with
her. She did not know where she was but was able to take a taxi to the hospital
for a forensic exam. According to police notes, the victim had bruises on her
face, a laceration on her upper lip, and pain in her vaginal area. The victim
had no recollection of the evening’s events after leaving a nightclub and
was not able to indicate where the assault took place. The detective wrote,
“At this time this is an allegation solely due to the fact there is DNA
that will be transported to the forensic lab where a case number is needed for
processing.” Although the detective suggested follow-up at the nightclub
and at the hospital, nine months after the assault the file contained no
indication of any investigation after the initial statement.[237]

A
case in the spring of 2011 in which the complainant said he was drugged and
assaulted. The allegation was initially listed as “pending SANE
results” but the kit was not located and sent for testing for several
months. In addition, there was no indication of investigation until “the
undersigned investigator received a phone call from the Gay and Lesbian Liaison
Unit. Officer stated she received a complaint about how his case was being
handled. C stated nothing had happened on his case” and requested a
female detective. Six months later the complainant went to the police
department and provided a statement about the assault. In March 2012 the assistant
US attorney sent a warrant request back for corrections.[238]

A
January 2009 case in which the victim reports that after drinking with a friend
and consensually kissing in his room, the suspect became forceful and inserted
his penis into her vagina against her will. The police viewed surveillance
video but because of a time discrepancy between when the victim reported she
was assaulted and when she swiped her card to enter her dorm, the detectives
seemed to lose interest in the investigation. After the forensic exam kit was
turned over to the lab (ten days after the exam), there is no indication of any
investigation. Even though the victim was “adamant” that the
assault took place, it is listed as an allegation.[239]

In her December 20, 2012 response to our December letter
informing the MPD of our findings with regard to office information cases,
Chief Lanier indicated that our analysis reflected a “complete
misunderstanding” and that,

In the past these classifications were used for cases where
the preliminary investigation did not reveal enough elements of a crime in the
District of Columbia. A few examples of such cases would include cases where
the victim cannot remember details of the offense, other evidence (video) or
witness statements indicate the offense did not occur, or the offense occurred
in another jurisdiction. Human Rights Watch also failed to mention that because
of suggestions from HRW, MPD changed this reporting procedure, and that public
reports are taken on all cases and they are classified as either a sexual
allegation or a sexual abuse case.[240]

This description is grossly
misleading. The definition of “office information” used by Human
Rights Watch was taken from the MPD SAU’s own Standard Operating
Procedures, which continue to govern SAU investigations.[241] The Standard Operating Procedures indicate that “office
information” cases are “closed by definition” and used when
“no crime was deemed to have occurred.” While crimes occurring in
other jurisdictions are properly categorized as “office
information” under MPD’s guidelines, any case in which “further
investigation is needed”— including a case in which the victim is
unsure if a crime occurred— is supposed to be classified as an
allegation. After investigation, if it is determined that no crime occurred, it
will be closed as “unfounded.” Thus, apart from cases occurring in
other jurisdictions, the situations described by Chief Lanier, under her procedure
and policies, would properly be classified as allegations. The new policies
that have come out since informing the MPD of our findings on May 30, 2012, make
no reference to the use of “office information” and are consistent
with the Standard Operating Procedures.

Eleanor G.

Discounting
a sexual assault may negatively impact a victim’s recovery and
ultimately undermine faith in the law enforcement, as was the case for
Eleanor G. On May 29, 2011, Eleanor was walking home late at night when she
noticed a strange man walking behind her. He made her nervous so she typed
“911” into her cell phone. As she was walking past an alley about
to cross the street, her assailant grabbed her from behind. He said “If
you scream, I will kill you. Give me your money and anything else I
want.”

When she
put her hands up in a gesture of compliance, his box cutter dug deeply into
the palm of her hand. Eleanor fell to the ground. He was on the ground behind
her with one arm around her waist and the box cutter at her throat. He
insisted she get up and go into the alley. She begged him to take her purse
and money and let her go, but he refused.

Eleanor
even offered to go to an ATM to get him cash rather than go into the alley.
He still insisted that she go into the alley with him and when she refused he
pressed the box cutter harder into her throat and then “he started to
count down from five.” At that point, she was bleeding profusely and
felt she had no choice but to go into the alley. Once in the alley, he pushed
her against the wall and tried to turn her to face him. Eleanor said,

It’s
very clear to me that it was an attempted sexual assault. He ripped my dress.
He forced me into an alley. He wouldn’t take my money … I
don’t understand what possible explanation there could be if it was
only a robbery.

When her
assailant removed the box cutter from her throat in order to turn her to face
him, Eleanor was able to grab his wrist and disarm him. Her assailant hit her
in the back of her head but she was able to scream for help. A neighbor ran
into the alley when he heard Eleanor’s cry of “Rape!” and
her assailant fled. Another woman who heard Eleanor’s scream called 911
and police arrived on the scene shortly thereafter and transported her to a
hospital.

Eleanor
was grateful that an officer stayed with her while she was alone at the
hospital, but she was later shocked to find her case was categorized as a
“robbery w/armed.”[242] It was not classified as an
attempted sexual abuse, though Eleanor repeatedly told both police officers
on the scene and the detective she spoke with later that it was an attempted
rape.[243] She attempted to change the
classification of her report on more than one occasion but failed.[244] The police kept saying,
“Well, but he didn’t rape you.”[245]

Eleanor
wrote to Chief Lanier about her experience and described her rage about this
misclassification given how clear she was in her communications with
detectives and officers about her assault. A few weeks later, an officer
called her at work. During the call he referred to her assault as “an
incident” and told her “sometimes we think we‘re
experiencing something but it isn’t necessarily what we think.”
The call was very upsetting for Eleanor:

All he kept
saying was ‘the incident,’ ‘the incident.’… For
them it’s just an incident. But for me, I was stabbed three times. For
me, I felt like I had to pick being between being killed or being raped.
It’s not just an incident.[246]

The
investigative file for the case, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, does not
reference an attempted rape at all. The witness who responded after hearing
Eleanor cry “rape” was never interviewed.[247] Eleanor felt that the minimization
of her experience by the MPD “caused me more victimization than the
actual perpetrator of the crime committed against me.”[248] She felt,

They just
didn’t listen to me, they made me feel completely ashamed of myself,
they made me feel like I was lying or like I was too stupid to understand
what happened to me, that I was trying to make something a big deal that
wasn’t that big of a deal…. My police interaction made my
recovery much harder…. To me, it feels like they’re saying it
didn’t happen at all because of the omission … they just
don’t believe what I was saying and that to me is … the worst
thing because ... I know that they’re not going to catch him. [249]

She said she has lost faith in law enforcement and when she
looks at police reports, “I don’t know when to believe them. I
know I should report a crime, but honestly, if I had to go through that
again, I’m not sure I would.”[250]

It’s
possible that the police officer who took the report thought that there would
be insufficient evidence to charge the case as an attempted rape. Yet that is
a decision for prosecutors, not police. Not classifying the case as an
attempted sexual abuse case (or even as an allegation) meant that the SAU did
not investigate her case and that Eleanor was not referred to a victim
specialist; a potential rapist may also have been permitted to walk the
streets undetected. The following January, another woman was sexually
assaulted at gunpoint in the same alley.[251]

Omitting Sex Offenses

Because detectives put the offense with the most severe
penalty first on the incident report, sexual assault cases may sometimes be
listed as a second offense after burglary or another crime. However, in some
cases, victims reported sexual assaults or attempted sexual assaults, but their
crimes were categorized as some other type of crime and either not referred to
the SAU at all or not investigated by the SAU as a sexual assault.

For example, an exam exemption report notes a case of a
woman who in September 2010 was pushed into her apartment by a stranger when
she tried to open the door. Her assailant threw her onto the bed, ripped her
dress off, and lowered her leggings. The woman urinated on herself in fear and
the suspect threw her against a wall but did not continue with the sexual
assault. According to a hospital report, the MPD investigated the case as a
simple assault and burglary rather than an attempted rape.[252]

A lawyer described how a close friend in D.C. was woken in
her apartment in the summer of 2011 at about 5 a.m. by a stranger holding her
down in her bed with what the assailant said was a knife. He said he was going
to rape her but she screamed and succeeded in fighting him off before he
managed to do so. Police refused to write up the report as an attempted rape
and were described by the victim to her friend as “incredibly
rude.” The MPD classified the incident as a burglary only.[253]

A witness at the hospital reported seeing a case in which
the victim’s rectum was cut with a knife, but the case was marked as a
physical assault only.[254]
An October 2009 case in which the victim was handcuffed and driven to an
undisclosed location and sexually assaulted was categorized only as
“kidnapping.”[255]

In other cases, the misclassification of a case may result
from misunderstanding the law. The D.C. Code defines a sexual act in part as,
“the penetration, however slight, of the anus or vulva by a hand or
finger or by any object, with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass,
degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person”[256]
(emphasis added).

However, in some cases detectives deemed penetration not to
be a sexual act because they did not think the penetration was committed for
sexual gratification. Concerned medical staff reported the following exchange
to the Office of Victim Services in April 2011:

[Patient(Pt.)] stated that she was vaginally and possibly
anally assaulted by two men who had broke into her fiancee’s house and
that she had been hit in the head several times and lost consciousness. She
wanted to report and have an exam completed. She was also two months pregnant.
[After meeting with detectives, the patient decided not to have an exam].

A sergeant asked to look into the matter said he was aware
of the incident and that it was not a sex crimes case. Asked why he concluded
this, the sergeant told the staff member, “There was no intent for sexual
pleasure or gratification.”[257]
The medical staff member said,

I explained to him that I didn’t believe sexual
gratification needed to be proven, that it was various things such as
harassment, degradations, humiliation. He specifically told me ‘No, it
must be for gratification.’[258]

In some cases it is also unclear why a case is classified as
an allegation rather than a sex abuse case. For example, an April 2011 report
for a victim with a stab wound stated,

She was given a ride by a ‘courtesy driver’
from the Giant Food Store … with her groceries. V-1 alleged that the
driver then, against her will, took her to an unknown location, where the
driver and another unknown subject tied her up with duct tape and forced her to
have sex for three days.

The victim stated “she escaped from the location she
was held, ran into the street and flagged down a vehicle” that drove her
to the hospital. The victim was the subject of a missing person report.
“It was determined by the sex branch investigators that no criminal
report would be taken until further investigation.”[259]
It is unclear why the case was not initially investigated as a sexual assault
case, or whether it was reclassified.

The June 12, 2012 MPD memorandum now requires including an
additional classification of “sexual abuse” or “sexual
allegation” in all incident reports involving sexual assaults and
articulating the offense in the narrative section, even if the primary offense
documented is a different crime.[260]

“Misdemeanors”

In the District of Columbia,
“misdemeanor sex abuse” (punishable by not more than 180 days
imprisonment and a fine not to exceed $1,000) is defined as “whoever
engages in a sexual act or sexual contact with another person and who should
have knowledge or reason to know that the act was committed without that other
person’s permission.”[261]
Therefore sexual acts, including oral, vaginal, and anal penetration, which are
not committed on an incapacitated victim or forcibly, may technically be
misdemeanors (along with groping cases) under D.C. law, though prosecutors
interviewed for this report indicate that would be unusual and that force is
not difficult to prove.[262]

Police consider a
“misdemeanor” an “upgrade” from an
“allegation.” In two cases in which the victims were intoxicated and
did not recall details of the assault, detectives recommended “upgrades”
to misdemeanors from allegations after confirmation that a sexual act took
place.[263]

Initial sexual abuse reports, like any other police report,
are often completed in the infancy stages of an investigation. The reporting
member can only report on the facts that are available at the time of the
report. If more facts become available, there is a process for reclassifying
the report, and MPD frequently reclassifies reports when more information
becomes available.[264]

Incident reports are reviewed by the reporting
officer’s supervisor, or if an SAU detective prepared the incident
report, a sergeant in the SAU. All reports are also subject to additional staff
review. Modifications to classifications can now be made electronically.

Human Rights Watch compared misdemeanor reports that seemed
wrongly categorized to first and second degree sexual abuse cases, and to allegations
of sexual abuse and attempted sexual assault, provided by the Metropolitan
Police Department in June 2012, to see if the misdemeanor reports had been
reclassified. In two cases, we found misdemeanors that had been reclassified as
first degree sexual abuse cases. However, the following cases were classified
as misdemeanors, despite facts available at the time of the report that
indicate a more serious offense. Their investigative files (which Human Rights
Watch reviewed in late August 2012) contained no indication of reclassification:

A
case in which the complainant reported that while walking on the street the
suspect threw her to the ground, ripped off her underwear, pulled down his
pants, made contact with her vagina (without penetration) and attempted to hold
his hand over her mouth before fleeing.[265]

A
case in which the complainant stated the suspect placed his middle finger
inside of her vagina without her permission.[266] Detective notes indicate the
complainant “didn’t tell him to stop because she was scared.”[267]

A
case in which the complainant states that the suspect continued to “get
things going again” after the complainant told him she did not want to go
any further and that he “placed his penis into the complainant’s
vagina against her will.”[268]

One
incident report reads, “The complainant states that the suspect
penetrated her vagina several times with his penis without her consent. The
suspect then left the room. When the suspect returned, he slapped the
complainant in the face and pushed her down on a mattress. The suspect then
penetrated the complainant’s vagina with his penis again without her
consent. The assault ended when the suspect masturbated on the
complainant’s face and in her mouth.”[269] Investigative notes from the
report further indicate that the complainant tried to escape but was slapped
and raped again.[270]

A
case in which the complainant disclosed “that while she was extremely
intoxicated the Suspect had sexual intercourse with her (penis to vulva)
without her consent. The complainant advised that due to her level of
intoxication she was not able to say no, however, the sexual act was not
wanted.”[271] The investigative file also
notes that the suspect attempted forced oral contact and ejaculated on the
victim’s face. The victim screamed after the assault and had a forensic
exam.[272]

A
case in which the complainant disclosed that the suspect, her supervisor,
“enticed her to perform fellatio on him” over a period of months.
She believed she would lose her job if she did not perform the sex acts.[273]

A
case in which the complainant reports that while engaged in sexual intercourse
with her boyfriend, he switched places with the suspect without her knowledge.[274]

A
case in which the complainant allowed the suspect to sleep on her couch. The
complainant “advised she woke up about 7am to find S-1 on top of her
engaging her in sex.”[275]

A
case in which the police note that the suspect “entered the apartment by
an unknown manner and surprised [the complainant], standing in her bedroom in
just his boxer-style underwear and a t-shirt. S-1 [the subject] proceeded to
get on top of her while she was laying in the bed. C-1 shouted how in the hell
did you get in here, get off of me. S-1 ignored her pleas and began to fondle
her breast with his hands underneath her, while sucking on her neck causing a
(HICKEY type BRUISE). C-1 still struggling with S-1 continued to shout at S-1
to stop when he proceeded to remove her panties. At that time C-1 shouted at
S-1 that I am on my period. S-1 continued to pull down C-1’s panties,
looked at her vagina and stopped. C-1 got dressed and then left. No threats or
verbal responses were reported by C-1 from S-1.” The case was listed as a
burglary and a misdemeanor sex abuse, not attempted first degree sexual
assault.[276]

A
case in which the incident report reads, “The complainant reports the
suspect engaged her in oral copulation, then inserted his penis into her vagina
without her permission. C-1 (complainant) and S-1 (suspect) are aquaintances
[sic]. No force was used per initial police report. There is no mention of
force, hence the misdemeanor sex abuse.”[277] The investigative file shows
no changes to the charge though the notes indicate that the victim “had
sex (vaginal intercourse) against her will,” cried, and told the
defendant to stop.[278]

A
case in which the complainant reports that the suspect “put his penis
inside C-1’s vagina against her will after telling him no.”[279] Internal notes indicate that
the suspect also digitally penetrated the complainant’s rectum and that
“The complainant stated that she did not scream or holler or even fight
suspect off of her, but she did tell him no and she did not want to do
it.”[280]

A
case in which the suspect grabbed the complainant’s buttocks and
“put his finger inside her vagina” though she told him to stop.[281] The investigative file shows
the victim told police that the suspect also “made her suck his
penis.”[282]

A
case in which the complainant reports that while “she was voluntarily in
the [suspect’s] room” the suspect engaged her in “vaginal
intercourse and cunnilingus” without her consent.[283]

A
case in which a complainant reports that the suspect forced her to orally copulate
him and a second assailant forced her to touch his penis.[284]

A case in which the suspect reached under the complainant’s
skirt and digitally penetrated her vagina against her will while she was
walking down the corridor.[285]

A case in which the complainant reported that the suspect
entered her apartment in an unknown manner and got on top of her while she
was in her bed. The complainant struggled and shouted and the suspect
fondled her breasts and proceeded to pull down her panties before getting
dressed and leaving.[286]

A case in which the complainant reported that her boss
pulled on her clothes, groped her breasts, and placed his hand in her
pants and digitally penetrated her vagina when she went to his office to
discuss working conditions.[287]

A case in which the suspect stuck his hand up the
complainant’s skirt and inserted his finger into her rectum.[288]

A case in which a woman reported that her boyfriend
threatened to “force himself in” her after she twice refused
to have sex with him. She was afraid because he had hit her in the past.[289]

A case in which the complainant reported non-consensual
vaginal intercourse with an acquaintance she met in a club.[290]

In the MPD’s December 2012
response to notification of Human Rights Watch’s findings that cases
seemed misclassified on their face, Chief Lanier stated that,

… the initial classification is not binding nor does
the classification of a report as a misdemeanor change the amount of
investigative resources and effort that are dedicated to a sexual abuse case.
All cases, misdemeanors and felonies have the same resources dedicated to them,
and the classification of the offense only becomes relevant at the charging
stage.[291]

Chief Lanier further stressed that
the prosecutors have the authority to upgrade or downgrade a charge and that in
the case provided to the chief by Human Rights Watch, in which the victim was
vaginally penetrated repeatedly with force, the prosecutor declined to upgrade
the charges.

Of the 28 misdemeanor cases
reviewed by Human Rights Watch, 17 were presented to prosecutors for review; 14
of those were rejected and closed administratively for being weak cases
(discussed further in the next section). One was sent back for further
information. Of the two cases which did result in arrest warrants, both were
considered misdemeanors, one in relation to a domestic violence charge. No
cases were upgraded. While the same investigative resources may be used for all
cases regardless of classification (though as a general rule it would be surprising
if all misdemeanors—which usually involve contact over clothing—receive
the same investigative resources as violent felonies), the categorization of
crime as a misdemeanor as opposed to a more serious offense at the initial
stage of investigation minimizes what happened to the victim, may mean the case
is not referred to the MPD’s Victim Services, and misleads the public—
which is entitled to know accurate information about local crime — about
the nature of the crime.

Administrative Closures
or Exceptional Clearances

Even in cases that are investigated, interviews with
witnesses and a review of investigative files raise concerns that the
investigations are not thorough. The US Attorney’s Office rejected more
than two-thirds of the arrest warrant affidavit requests in files reviewed by
Human Rights Watch, primarily on grounds that the case presented was
“weak.” Arrest data provided by the MPD shows very few suspects
were arrested and charged with sex abuse in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Witnesses
also report police reluctance to collect evidence or follow leads.

One way for a case to be closed at the MPD is if the US
Attorney’s Office declines prosecution for lack of prosecutorial merit.[292]
Concretely, for this to happen, the police must have filed an affidavit for an
arrest warrant, and the prosecutor must have declined to seek the warrant. According
to police policy, a sergeant and a lieutenant must review and approve every affidavit
for a warrant before it is presented to the US Attorney’s Office.[293]

If the US Attorney’s Office declines prosecution, there
is an administrative closure or a “304.1.” That closure might be
considered “cleared by exceptional means” and counted the same as
“clearance by arrest.”[294]

Publicly available “clearance
rates” are one way in which police chiefs and departments are publicly evaluated.
A prosecutor said, “Pressure for closure rates on police departments is
enormous.”[295] FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data does not
distinguish between cases cleared by arrest and cases cleared by exceptional
means in collecting data and tabulating offense clearance rates.[296] Cases are only supposed to be “exceptionally
cleared” in limited circumstances when a suspect is identified and police
have gathered enough evidence to press charges but circumstances beyond law
enforcement control prevent arrest (such as the suspect is deceased,
incarcerated, outside of police jurisdiction or— in some circumstances—
if the victim no longer wishes to cooperate). The FBI guidelines indicate
exceptional clearance is to be used by police agencies to clear offenses once “they
have exhausted all leads and have done everything possible in order to clear a
case.”[297]

Experts in sexual assault investigations and prosecutions
also say they would expect affidavits in support of arrest warrants to be
presented only when detectives believe they have a case. They would expect a
majority of warrant requests to be approved or sent back for further
investigation. Another mechanism should be in place if a detective is seeking
prosecutorial review of an incomplete or difficult investigation.[298]
An analysis of charging decisions in three cities (Kansas City, Miami, and
Philadelphia) is consistent with these observations, finding that, overall,
prosecutors filed charges in 54.5 percent of cases presented to them.[299]

However, 44 of the 66 warrant requests that Human Rights
Watch reviewed in MPD files were rejected by the US Attorney’s Office,
primarily because the case was deemed “weak.” Some of the 44 cases were
closed because the victim no longer wished to cooperate.[300]
Two of them were sent back for further review. Only 18 cases (27.2 percent) had
a warrant request approved, and of those, 8 were for misdemeanors, and 2 were
for non-sex offenses.[301]
Four were for first or second degree sex abuse. For the remaining four cases in
which warrants were approved, it was not possible to determine the charges from
our review of the files.

Human Rights Watch reviewed only a
limited number of files so it is not possible to draw a definitive conclusion
from this. But the seemingly high proportion of closures in these cases does raise
concern about the thoroughness of investigations and about whether police are
properly investigating cases and reviewing arrest warrant requests before
presenting them to the US Attorney’s Office. One prosecutor from another
jurisdiction consulted for this report described these numbers as “way
out of the norm” and expressed concerns that police might be consistently
presenting warrant requests with insufficient evidence, or that prosecutors may
be screening out serious cases because they think they may lose, creating a
situation in which offenders are not held accountable.[302]

In Los Angeles, an extensive
study found a similar pattern of high rejection rates for charging in sex crime
cases during “pre-arrest” review. Of 383 cases presented by the Los
Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles Police Department
to prosecutors between 2005 and 2009, researchers found 262 (68.4 percent) were
rejected because of insufficient evidence or because the victim was unwilling
to cooperate (149 of those were rejected before the suspect could be arrested).
Charges were filed in 121 (31.6 percent) of cases.[303]

The report found that law enforcement was presenting
“problematic” cases to the district attorney (such as cases
involving victims who engaged in risk-taking behavior such as drinking or using
illegal drugs, or cases in which detectives had questions about whether the
victim was truthful) for pre-arrest review, and then when they were rejected,
counting them as closed for purposes of their clearance rate.[304]
Often the cases presented for review were those that that police had not
thoroughly investigated in anticipation of a “reject” that would
still count as a clearance.[305]
Significantly more cases were cleared exceptionally than through arrest in both
the sheriff’s and police departments.[306]

Between 2007 and 2011, the UCR average clearance for rape cases
for cities between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people ranged from 39.6 percent (2007)
to 43.1 percent (2009), with other years reporting clearance rates of 40 or 41
percent.[307]
In contrast, the clearance rate reported by the MPD for rape was substantially
higher: 67.7 percent in 2007; 65.1 percent in 2008; 76.7 percent in 2009; and
59.8 percent in 2010.[308]

However, according to arrest data the MPD provided to Human
Rights Watch, only 15 arrests were made for sexual abuse (first through fourth
degree, attempt, misdemeanor or “aggravating circumstances”) in 2008;
18 in 2009; and 16 were arrested on adult sex abuse charges in 2010. These
arrest numbers are extremely low compared to the number of assaults in the
district, yet overall clearance rates are very high, indicating that the bulk
of the MPD’s cases may be closed through an administrative clearance.[309]

For example, in 2010, the MPD reports to the FBI clearing 59.8
percent of 184 sexual assault cases (110 cases), but only 22 arrests for sexual
assault were in data provided to Human Rights Watch for that year, including
child sex abuse cases, misdemeanor cases, and a fourth degree sex abuse case
that would not be included in FBI clearance data. The FBI information includes forcible
rape against child female victims but, as discussed elsewhere, excludes other
sex offenses such as cases with male victims and cases in which the victim is
incapacitated. Even interpreting the data in the light most favorable to the
MPD, the numbers are concerning. The number of arrests did go up substantially
to 59 cases in the first six months of 2011.[310]
We do not have more recent arrest or clearance data and therefore are not in a
position to assess whether this increase reflects a meaningful change in the
pattern of low arrests and high clearance rates.

In response to our findings, the MPD states that
“HRW’s suggestion that MPD is over-reporting its closure rates for
sexual abuse is absolutely false,” noting that these cases are extremely
difficult to prove or disprove and that the high closure rate is a result of
the inclusion of non-adult cases in FBI data as “the non-adult cases are
familial, do close, and do have an impact on closure rates.”[311]

Human Rights Watch recognizes that these cases are difficult
to prove and therefore would expect clearance or arrest rates to be low, not
high, as a result. Furthermore, there is no indication of why inclusion of child
cases in FBI data would disproportionately impact the District of Columbia
since the same definition applies to all cities, yet the MPD’s clearance
rates are well above the average (in one year nearly double) for cities its
size.

However, the MPD is correct to some degree. If we ignore FBI
data and use only the information about adult sexual assault cases provided to
Human Rights Watch, for 2010, the estimated clearance by arrest rate for adult
sex abuse cases in D.C. (including misdemeanors) is 5 percent. This is based on
arrest data and documentation provided to Human Rights Watch by the MPD which
shows 16 arrests and 316 incident reports for all adult sex abuse cases in 2010
(6 arrests for child sexual abuse in 2010 are excluded).

The discrepancy between the data
provided to the public by the FBI about clearances, and the number of arrests
(which may or may not lead to prosecution) demonstrates the need to reform the
FBI’s data collection so that publication of “clearance
rates” is not misleading.

Affidavits in Support of Arrest Warrants

Also troubling is the fact that many of the warrant requests
reviewed by Human Rights Watch were flimsy or negative about their own
supporting evidence. Information that would be exculpatory or cast doubt on the
establishment of probable cause is supposed to be included in the warrant
request, but in some cases that Human Rights Watch reviewed, the police had
placed more emphasis on problems with the case than reasons for probable cause.
In other cases, a request was made based on little, if any, investigation. One
possible explanation for such compromised presentation of evidence is that they
were prepared as a pretext in order to close a difficult case with little
expectation of success. Two prosecutors interviewed referred to cases like
these as “cover your ass” cases.[312]
The following are examples of warrant requests found in MPD’s files:

In
the fall of 2011, a victim reported going to the suspect’s house after
drinking together. She vomited from alcohol consumption. The victim reported
being hit and vaginally assaulted by the suspect and two other suspects. Yet the
warrant request consists almost entirely of a list of eight supposed “inconsistencies”
in the victim’s statement, such as that she did not elaborate on what
drinks she had or what liquor was used to make the drinks; she “admitted
she smoked weed;” she said the suspect “hit” her but then said
he “kicked and punched her;” and that the victim was
“adamant” about getting a rape kit but did not get a rape kit done.
Elsewhere in the file it is apparent that the victim did undergo a forensic
exam at WHC. Yet the arrest warrant request, which the detective filed after
collecting the forensic exam, maintains there was no hospital visit. The files
contain no indication of an investigation, apart from collection of the
forensic kit. Other “inconsistencies” listed in the warrant request
include that the victim refused to give the address of where her child was and
did not have identification.[313]

In
a July 2009 misdemeanor case, the complainant reported meeting the suspect at a
club and going home with him, where he sexually assaulted her. The warrant
request—which was denied on the grounds that it was a “weak
case”—was made solely on the basis of the victim interview, even
though other witnesses were named in the file and presumably could have been
interviewed.[314]

A
September 2011 case in which the complainant reported being assaulted on a date
after some consensual sexual activity. She went to a friend’s house
immediately after and told her of the assault but the police did not interview her
friend. The case was classified as a misdemeanor and a warrant request, based
on minimal investigation, was denied because it was a “weak case.”[315]

A
January 2010 case in which the victim said she had consensual oral sex with the
suspect but made it clear she would not have intercourse. The complainant
described a struggle with her assailant before he forcibly penetrated her
vaginally. Immediately afterwards she reported it to a friend who suggested she
get a forensic exam, but she did not decide to go to the police until a few
weeks later. The arrest warrant request consisted of the victim statement only
and the fact that the victim identified a photo of her assailant. Police did
not interview her friend or the assailant. The arrest warrant request was made
and rejected four days after the victim reported her assault.[316]

An
early 2011 case in which the victim said she had consensual oral sex with the
suspect but did not give permission for vaginal intercourse and tried to push
the suspect off of her. The victim statement was the only information in the
file. A week later, a prosecutor rejected a warrant request under
“304.1”(administrative closure) due to a “weak case.”[317]

Prosecutors interviewed by Human Rights Watch indicated that
for some cases an arrest warrant request may be brought on the basis of a
complainant’s statement alone, particularly if it involves a violent
offender who should be removed from the street immediately.[318]
However, in most cases, especially if the complainant does not remember the
events, the prosecutor would expect the file to include additional information
such as a “single party call,” (or “pretext
call”— when the victim is asked to call the suspect on a recorded
line), or an interview with a “report of rape witness,” (or
“outcry witness”— the first person to whom the victim spoke
of the assault), or a video from a security camera, even when there is no
witness to the assault itself to corroborate the statement.[319]

Over the course of our investigation, victims and others
reported a lack of initiative among some detectives when it comes to following
basic leads or collecting forensic evidence:

An
attorney reported that in early 2011, her client, Rosa S., was abducted by two
men wearing masks who approached her near a metro station close to her
workplace. She was taken to a house and raped repeatedly overnight before being
released the next morning. Since the assailants knew personal details about
her, Rosa suspected that someone with whom she had been in an abusive
relationship might have arranged the assault. Initially too scared to tell
anyone about her assault, she soon learned she was pregnant. Her lawyers
convinced her to go to the police, who—according to the lawyer—conducted
an aggressive interview that took several hours. Police did not allow Rosa to
have her lawyer present for the interview, instead instructing her to wait
outside (prosecutors interviewed for this report knew of no reason why the
lawyer would not be permitted to be present).[320]

According
to the attorney, the detective said there was no evidence and that police could
not proceed with an investigation because the crime occurred weeks earlier.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked the attorney. A staff member
from the organization working with Rosa recalled being told by Rosa that the
detective told her, “You are only doing this to get immigration status,
aren’t you?” (Rosa already had a visa). Rosa’s lawyer said a
social worker who checked on the status of the case at MPD was informed the
detective did not believe Rosa and the case would not go ahead. Rosa’s
lawyer recalled that Rosa tried to provide the police with DNA evidence from
the abortion she later had, but there was no departmental follow up. Anxious to
move on, she did not want to pursue the matter further.[321]

According
to Estella C., when she reported her sexual assault by an acquaintance in a
vehicle in the spring of 2010, she was able to give the detective her
assailant’s nickname, cell phone number, and place of employment. But the
detective said she could not interview him because she did not have his proper
name. Estella’s boyfriend later called the number and got the
assailant’s name from the caller ID and tried to give it to the
detective. “What do I need that for?” the detective asked, when
Estella called her with the name so the detective could interview the assailant.
The detective told Estella the incident did not sound like rape and the matter
would not be pursued.[322]The detective wrote in her notes, “The
interview concluded with [Estella] admitting that although she may have been
thinking or even saying that she did not want the suspect to touch her or to have
vaginal intercourse with her, her actions dictated something totally different.
Therefore the suspect may have gotten the wrong idea about her intentions.”[323] Estella tried to report the
assault to another police district, but was turned away because she had already
reported to the SAU.[324] Internal police notes confirm
that police conducted no investigation because the detective determined during
Estella’s initial interview that “no further police actions need to
be taken at this time given that no sexual assault occurred.” In a case
review less than a week after the assault it was noted “In light of the
[victim’s] constant calls, referred to victims services. Investigation
remains closed because no crime occurred.”[325]

In
September 2010, one advocate noticed that two separate victims had named a
particular perpetrator in sexual assault incidents reported to police a year
apart. After checking the records she discovered it was the same
suspect—something the MPD did not realize until the advocate called them,
twice. Police then reopened the first case, but did not notify the first victim
that they were looking into her case.[326]

Susan
D., who reported being sexually assaulted by a date (see Summary section), said
that, although a detective told her not to wash her dress or underwear because
a crime scene team would pick it up from her apartment, no one ever came. Nor
did anyone process the crime scene (her apartment).[327]

When
Maya T., who reported being kidnapped and sexually assaulted over three days in
April 2011, asked the detective assigned to her case about her forensic evidence
kit, she said he asked her, “Rape kit? What rape kit?”— even
though he had interviewed her in the hospital and knew she had completed an
exam. Maya said that the detective was not interested in receiving the
narrative of events that she wrote a few days after the assault, when her
memory was better, telling her the report was “miscellaneous.”[328] Nor did her investigative file
indicate that a rape kit was collected.[329]

When
Shelly G. (see text box) went to the MPD with her cell phone in an effort to
provide threatening voicemail messages from her assailant to her detective in
October 2009, she had to wait for “well over an hour” before he
would see her and then he told her he did not know if he could do anything with
the evidence.[330]

Human Rights Watch provided three examples of misclassified
cases to the MPD in advance of this report’s publication. In its response,
the MPD addressed only one of these cases, which was classified as a
misdemeanor:

“The
complainant states that the suspect penetrated her vagina several times with
his penis without her consent. The suspect then left the room. When the suspect
returned, he slapped the complainant in the face and pushed her down on a
mattress. The suspect then penetrated the complainant’s vagina with his
penis again without her consent. The assault ended when the suspect masturbated
on the complainant’s face and in her mouth.”[331] Investigative notes from the
report further indicate that the complainant tried to escape but was slapped
and raped again.[332]

In its response, the MPD states this case was
“thoroughly investigated, and was presented to the United States
Attorney’s Office (USAO) for prosecution. The USAO has the authority to
upgrade or downgrade a charge depending on the facts of the case. In this case
there was no effort to upgrade the charges.”[333]

The response is troubling for a
number of reasons. First, if proper police procedure is followed, a request for
an arrest warrant is presented to the USAO only after it has been reviewed by a
sergeant and lieutenant. If that happened in this case, it means the
detective’s supervisors approved classification as a misdemeanor although
the incident report, on the face of it, indicates force was used, which makes
it a first degree sex abuse case under D.C. law.

Second, the request for a warrant did not lead either to an
upgrade or downgrade of charges by prosecutors, who simply rejected it, leading
to an administrative closure of the case. We cannot tell for sure why it was rejected,
but one possible reason was what appears to be the poor quality of the
investigation supporting the warrant request. The investigative file suggests
that the investigation focused on gathering evidence to disprove or undermine
the complainant’s report of the assault, rather than investigating if
there was corroborative evidence. For example, the complainant said her assailant
had used drugs. The detective contacted the suspect’s parole officer and
found that his drug test was clean.

That information was included in
the affidavit for an arrest warrant. The rest of the investigation consisted of
searching for evidence that would show the victim interacted normally with the
suspect after the assault. The evidence was not found. The file showed no
indication that the detectives pursued any of the forensic evidence either from
the forensic exam or the crime scene which may have supported the
victim’s complaint. There are a number of standard investigative steps
such as identifying and interviewing witnesses the complainant may have spoken
with immediately after the assault, or conducting a pretext phone call (when the victim is asked to call
the suspect on a recorded line), that
could have been pursued. The file indicates that they were not. A potential
witness was a person with an interest in the property where the assault was
said to have occurred. The file indicates that the person was not contacted by
the police. In light of what is, and what is not in the investigative file and
the police affidavit seeking a warrant, Human Rights Watch finds it troubling
that the chief would describe this investigation as “thorough.”

Shelly G.

Shelly G.
shared the following account about her experience. She was at a bar with
co-workers in October 2009. A stranger at the bar was watching her all
evening and bought her and her friends drinks. She woke up partially clothed
in her living room with the man from the bar, who was also undressed. She had
no recollection of what happened but feared she had been sexually assaulted.
Afraid for her safety, she locked herself in her bedroom until the morning. She
went to the hospital for a forensic exam that day and met an MPD detective
there.[334] She told the detective what
happened and a friend who was with her also spoke with the detective.
However, she felt that once she told the detective that she had been
drinking, he shut down. He tried to discourage her from reporting by saying
it would “take years” to get results from her forensic exam and
DNA results from sperm on her pajamas. Meanwhile, Shelly’s assailant
contacted her repeatedly over the phone and left her voicemail messages saying,
“I know I was aggressive. Don’t do anything stupid. Be
cool.”[335]

Over the
course of the investigation, Shelly said getting the detective to follow up
“was like pulling teeth.”[336] She felt he had already made up
his mind it was not a good case and he would not pursue it. When Shelly took
her cell phone to the MPD so that the police would have the messages she
received from the assailant, she waited for well over an hour before the
detective came to get the phone. Then he said, “I don’t know if
we can do anything with this.” When she applied for and received a
temporary protective order, she ran into her detective, who asked, “Is
this really necessary?”[337]

Shelly was
not sure the detective classified the case as sexual abuse (indeed, a review
of the file indicated it was classified as an allegation). The detective told
her, “I see this kind of case all the time. There isn’t enough
evidence.”[338] He made Shelly feel like she was
imagining things or at fault—that she had too much to drink and did
something that she regretted.

After the
assault, Shelly’s friend Matt K. ran into the detective at the bar
where the events occurred, where the detective had gone to collect evidence.
Matt introduced himself to the

detective
and offered to assist with the investigation. Because he had been drinking,
Matt suggested they do the interview another time, but the detective said
they could take care of it then. Matt was very concerned about what had
happened to Shelly and described in detail what had happened that night.
However, he felt the detective was “dismissive.” He gave Matt an
analogy about seeing two cars about to collide when a truck passes by, making
it impossible to see what happened. He did not ask Matt about Shelly’s
response immediately after the assault and never called him to follow up.[339]

When the
detective decided to close Shelly G.’s case in the fall of 2009, he
called her late on a Saturday night and asked her what she was doing. She
said she had just arrived at a wedding reception. He insisted that he meet
with her immediately. He came to the hotel lobby and, according to his notes,
told her about a videotape from the bar that he said was inconsistent with
her version of events and said “that there was no physical evidence
supporting her speculation that she had been abducted and sexually
assaulted.”[340] Noting his skepticism, Shelly said
she confronted the detective about whether he believed her, and he made it
clear he did not.[341] She said of the meeting, “To
hear him tell me he didn’t believe me was a slap in my face. It just
knocked me down, it was a punch in my stomach. It just took the air right out
of me. And where do you go from there when the policeman tells you he
doesn’t believe you?”[342]

The
detective’s skepticism is apparent in the file, despite physical
injuries (discoloration on her mouth and hip) and other unexplained physical
evidence. After reviewing video footage from the bar, the detective noted,
“It was apparent from the video footage that the C’s claim of
being carried out of [the bar] and being kidnapped, did not appear plausible.”
Yet nowhere in the notes from the interviews with Shelly or her friends was
there any indication that anyone claimed she had been kidnapped.[343]

The
detective’s notes did not include any information about the content of
the threatening voicemails. In an interview with the detective, the suspect
denied that there was sexual contact with Shelly G.[344] Yet the detective closed the case
well before receiving results from the forensic exam and before lab results
were returned from the pajamas, which would have had direct bearing on the
suspect’s claim that there had been no sexual contact between him and
Shelly.[345] The detective led Shelly to
believe her assailant had indicated that they had had a consensual encounter.
Like other victims, Shelly described feeling even more traumatized by the
experience after reporting to the police. She is still recovering.[346] Three years after the events
occurred, on October 26, 2012, after following up with MPD and after Human
Rights Watch had informed the department of its preliminary findings, Shelly
received a message from Chief Lanier indicating that her case would be
re-opened. However, when Shelly spoke with a lieutenant about re-opening her
case, the lieutenant was abrasive and left Shelly “feeling, once again,
like I am in the wrong.”[347]

III. Vulnerable Cases

Our review of case files and interviews with witnesses
indicate that some police are most likely to be dismissive in cases involving
alcohol or drugs. In addition, several people who work with victims told Human
Rights Watch that, in their perception, police are less likely to treat sex
workers well.

However, Human Rights Watch is aware that there are
detectives in the department who have made concerted efforts to pursue cases in
which sex workers are victims. As a result, this perception of some people on
the ground may reflect the fact that they have witnessed inappropriate
responses by some patrol officers or individual detectives, and that the
efforts that some are making are not visible in the community.

Drug or Alcohol-Facilitated
Sexual Assault

Research indicates that nationally, drugs or alcohol are
involved in nearly half of all sexual assaults.[348]
The definition of sexual assault in most places, including the District of
Columbia, takes this into consideration.

In D.C., first degree sexual
abuse includes engaging in a sexual act “after rendering that other
person unconscious” or after administering either by force, or threat of
force, or without that person’s knowledge, “a drug, intoxicant or
other similar substance that substantially impairs the ability of that other
person to appraise or control his or her conduct.” [349]

Second degree sexual abuse
occurs when a person engages in a sexual act with a person who is
“incapable of appraising the nature of the conduct; incapable of
declining participation in that sexual act; or incapable of communicating
unwillingness to engage in that sexual act.”[350] Intoxication may result in this level of
impairment. Signs suggestive of drug or alcohol-facilitated sexual assault
include unexplained loss or rearrangement of clothing; memory loss,
disorientation, or confusion; and unexplained signs of trauma, particularly
genital trauma.[351]

Some police (like others in the
general public) may not view these cases as “legitimate” because
they do not necessarily involve force, but they are all non-consensual sexual
acts and the impact on the victim is still devastating. As one victim of second
degree sex abuse said,

The way people react to rape isn’t fair. If my purse
was stolen, it wouldn’t be my fault. I was shattered and I did not have a
violent assault.[352]

Drug or alcohol-facilitated
assaults are challenging cases to investigate because the victim’s memory
may be substantially impaired. The sedative property of drugs often used in
drug-facilitated sexual assaults means that victims may only have the sense
that they were violated but not recall the assaults themselves. In addition,
reporting is often delayed, making it possible, if not likely, that toxicology
reports will be negative since the drugs leave the victim’s system
quickly.

These difficulties make it even
more important that detectives pursue an investigation and interview any
witness who might have interacted with the victim before, during, or after the
assault to help establish time frames, corroborate unusual behavior, provide
critical facts, and identify other sources of information.[353] As an expert in drug-facilitated sexual assault
cases testified in Rachel’s case against the MPD,

The whole point of investigation is putting it all
together. And you don’t say ‘Well, she said she was drunk. Screw
it.’ Voluntary intoxication is not consent to have sex. It may still be a
sexual assault. And that’s the purpose of a proper investigation.[354]

Following the 2008 lawsuit relating to police handling of
Rachel’s case discussed above, Human Rights Watch would expect to find an
internal re-evaluation of the MPD’s approach toward cases involving drugs
or alcohol. However, victims and witnesses said that even after 2008, the MPD had
failed to report cases in which the victim may be intoxicated or drugged.[355]
One observer noted that officers may not investigate “college cases”
at all unless the victim has sustained substantial physical injury because
alcohol is often involved.[356]
Another reported,

Quite honestly it’s been a
challenge when many of the detectives don’t want to move forward on the
cases because alcohol or drugs have been involved…. They are clear. It is
because of drugs or alcohol they don’t want to get involved. [357]

Medical staff describe the police attitude as, “Oh
well. That is normal. It happens all the time;” or, if the victim was
drunk, “it was her fault she was assaulted.[358]
Shelly G. said that when she reported her assault in October 2009, the
detective seemed to shut down as soon as she said she had been drinking.[359]
According to these observers, if the victim does not recall what happened, the
detectives often state that no crime occurred, even though a symptom of a drug-facilitated
assault is an inability to remember events.[360]
A detective told the former director of the SANE program, “She
doesn’t remember what happened so there is not a crime. You can’t
have sex and not remember.”[361]

In such cases, police sometimes fail to ask particular
questions to ascertain if it might be a drug-facilitated sexual assault.[362]
Witness reports and a review of MPD investigative files suggest some detectives
continue to take a dismissive approach to these cases, which their supervisors
tolerate.

In addition to Shelly G.’s case, the following
are examples of sexual assault complaints described to Human Rights Watch or
found in the MPD’s files that occurred since late 2008, that show strong signs
they were drug or alcohol-facilitated, and which police apparently decided not
to investigate:

A
victim, who woke up in September 2011 with no underwear and with personal items
missing from her home after a night drinking at a club, was concerned she had
been assaulted after a friend reported seeing her engaging intimately with a
strange man. She had no recollection of the night. The detective told her that
the progression of the case depended on the SANE results. The file notes stated,
“In the meantime, a miscellaneous report will be taken to reflect the
fact the complainant has reported the matter to the police.” Police told
the victim there was “no evidence to substantiate that a crime was
committed against her.” However, the final entry in the file was an
indication that the SANE exam found semen in the victim’s cervix, buttocks,
and externally. Although it says the detective will follow up, there is no
further entry in the investigative file.[363]

In
the spring of 2011, after a night of drinking, a victim reported waking up with
dirt on her hair, bed, and clothes, with no underwear, and with bruises on her
inner thighs and abrasions on her knees. She had no recollection of what
happened the night before or how she got home. The forensic report noted the
presence of a clear sticky fluid. Police classified the incident report as “miscellaneous,”
and listed it as “closed pending” four days later. Police records
showed minimal investigation.[364]

A
young woman who was at a bar in February 2011 when an acquaintance brought her
a drink. She remembers nothing after that but the next morning friends found
her on the street between two parked cars, with abrasions, no underwear, and no
cellphone.[365] According to hospital staff,
detectives told her, “You can’t remember anything so you
aren’t reporting a sexual assault. Call us if you remember
something.” Police did not take a report or follow up.[366] Internal police investigation
files confirm that police recorded the incident as “office
information” because “no crime was reported.” The detective
noted having “provided [the victim] with my business card and said to
call if she needed police services.” Though the victim told the detective
the next day that she would like to know what the police could do about her
case, the case remained classified as “office information” and the
file did not indicate any investigation.[367]

A
college student who woke up outside her dorm room in the spring of 2010 without
pants and with skinned knees, bruises, scratches on her face and thighs, and
abrasions and mulch in her vagina. According to medical staff, police said they
would not investigate because the victim did not remember the crime, which they
wrote up as a general report.[368] They attributed the mulch to
her possibly falling on the ground while urinating outdoors.[369] The victim said she felt like
she was being called a liar and not taken seriously.[370]

Valerie
S., who has a physical disability and woke up the morning after drinking at a
party out of her wheelchair and naked. She could not remember what happened but
was concerned she had been sexually assaulted. Medical staff say that the
responding officers said this was not the case. She decided not to file a
complaint because of the disbelieving way the officers questioned her.[371]

The MPD states it has made efforts to improve its
handling of drug-facilitated sexual assault cases since 2008. The efforts
included having detectives attend a 2010 training at the US Attorney’s
Office, led by an expert in drug-facilitated sexual assault cases. Also, the
MPD states that the number of cases submitted for toxicology testing “has
substantially increased.”[372]
Records from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner (which conducts toxicology
tests in suspected drug-facilitated sexual assault cases for the MPD) show that
their lab received, collected, or had transferred to it: 6 sexual assault
forensic evidence kits in 2008, 2 in 2009, 12 in 2010, and 7 as of May 25,
2011.[373]

A new measure that could improve the handling of
these cases is a case review process. Chief Lanier told Human Rights Watch that
the MPD is in the “process of developing a formal case review process in
which a panel will review, on a bi-weekly basis, all cases that have been
investigated and are not forwarded to the US Attorney’s Office for
prosecution.”[374]
The concept of “case review” of closed cases has been on the SART
agenda since 2010.[375]
However, as of October 2012, it had not been implemented.[376]
Different sources told Human Rights Watch this was because law enforcement was
not providing necessary information.[377]

Additional Cases Involving
Drugs or Alcohol That Raise Questions

The
case of a sex worker who, according to community advocates, attempted to report
an assault. Law enforcement told her that she was “complicit in her
assault” and that she had no case because she had done drugs.[378]

The
case of Kathy A., whom medical staff said woke up with no clothes on after a
job doing make-up at a party. She did not remember what happened but suspected
she had been drugged and assaulted. “Happens all the time,” a
member of the medical staff recalled the detective telling her. “There is
nothing we can do.”[379]

The
early 2011 case of a victim who had only two drinks but blacked out while
driving. Hospital staff said she woke up with her pants off, and her wallet and
phone missing. She remembered a flash of two guys in her car but nothing else.
Two weeks after reporting her assault to police at the hospital, her forensic
exam kit and blood and urine samples were still awaiting pick-up because the
detectives said the crime could have happened in Maryland. [380]

A
July 2009 case in which the complainant was highly intoxicated at the time of
her report and indicated she had been assaulted. Though at the time her
statement appeared unclear, the victim called back nine days later to ask about
results from her rape kit. The detective explained it would take six weeks or
longer for results, but the file does not indicate any follow-up or
investigation after the call.[381]

An
October 2011 case in which the victim had half an open soda after a date and
woke up without her shirt, tights, and underwear, and with her head spinning
and hurting. She was very upset but could not recall what had happened or how
her clothing had gone missing. She had not had any alcohol or drugs but
witnesses described her as wobbly. She went for a forensic exam, but police
listed the case as office information and did not assign a case number.[382]

A
fall 2011 case in which the complainant reports that he lost consciousness
after meeting the suspect at a nightclub, but awoke briefly to find the suspect
anally penetrating him before losing consciousness again. The detective wrote
up the report as an “allegation of a misdemeanor,” though assigned
no case number. The file notes that the detective left one message for the
suspect on his cell phone over two months after the assault. It also notes one
unsuccessful attempt five months after the assault to go to the nightclub, when
it was closed. But it contains no indication of further investigation.[383]

A
May 2010 case in which the complainant was at a bar with a friend and next
remembers waking up in a lobby with no shoes, underwear, or purse, with
soreness in her vaginal area. The complainant was very upset. The case was
taken as an “office information” case and apart from delivering the
forensic kit to the lab, there is no indication of any follow-up or
investigation before it was closed.[384]

A
May 2009 case in which the complainant was found intoxicated on the sidewalk
stating she was raped. She was “highly intoxicated” at the time of
the interview and was taken to the hospital. But the report indicates
“follow up: None.” [385]

An
October 2010 case in which the victim was found in a wooded area
“bleeding from the nose and mouth” with her pants and underwear
off. The victim “admitted to having smoked PCP.” Though the victim
had a SANE exam, the case was closed before the results were returned from the
lab. The case was categorized as office information “injured person to
hospital.” The “complainant was advised … that she did not
report that she was sexually assaulted.”[386] The complainant said she
wanted to leave the matter alone, but added that “the SANE Nurse told her
she was the victim of a sexual assault because of injuries to her face/mouth
and that there were tears to her vaginal area.” However, the detective
notes that the nurse noted no “acute” findings (emphasis
added) during the genital examination and therefore the detective “finds
that no crime was reported or alleged to have been committed.”[387]

A
January 2010 case in which a complainant reported waking up after a night of
partying with no pants and underwear, on a floor in an apartment. She had no
recollection of what happened but had a SANE exam. The case was designated
“office information.” The file does not indicate whether police
picked up the forensic exam kit.[388]

Naked,
Bloody, and Unconscious

Two
hospital staff members reported that in October 2010, a victim was brought to
the hospital after a passerby spotted a trail of blood leading to a hotel
room and called the police. When police arrived at the scene, they found a
woman naked, bloody, and unconscious in a tub filled with ice in a hotel room
bathroom. Five men were passed out in the room. The victim had lost
significant amounts of blood, had a tear from her vagina to her rectum, and
required emergency surgery and a blood transfusion. According to the staff
members, an SAU detective told someone who works with sexual assault
survivors, “Well, she could have fallen on rocks and may not have had
panties on. Also what kind of girl is in a room with five guys?”[389]

Sex Workers

Sex workers face an increased risk of sexual assault. Many
predators rightly believe that sex workers may be reluctant to report to the
police. However, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office,
prosecuting people who prey on sex workers is especially important because sex
workers are often targets for serial offenders or killers because of their
vulnerability and unwillingness to go to police.[390]

The Standard Operating Procedures
for the MPD’s Sexual Assault Unit state that, “One of the myths
surrounding sexual assault is that prostitutes cannot be victims of sexual
assault. Whether or not someone is involved with prostitution does not affect
the fact that forcing sex on someone is sexual assault and illegal.”[391] Human Rights Watch research also indicates that a
number of detectives in the SAU aggressively investigate cases in which the
victims are sex workers. According to the assistant US attorney responsible for
prosecuting sexual assaults in D.C., since 2008 at least 14 cases, involving 24
victims who were sex workers, have been prosecuted or are now under
investigation. Many of these cases involved the same detectives, whom she
praised for their positive interaction with victims.[392] Chief Cathy Lanier also told Human Rights Watch
that detectives are actively investigating a case involving a paid escort that
was reported in late May 2012, even though the victim was not able to
participate in the investigation. Lanier acknowledged that failing to
investigate crimes against sex workers (or others), even if the victim is
unable to engage in the investigation, leaves violent predators on the street
and is a serious threat to public safety.[393]

Nevertheless individuals who have witnessed MPD officers
interact with sex workers who reported sexual assault shared concerns that, in
practice, officers may make a quick decision that a sexual assault case involving
a sex worker victim is not winnable and therefore not pursue it. For example, one
transgender victim of a violent sexual assault was told by her lawyer that
police did not pursue her case because the suspect said she was a sex worker.[394]
Problematic behavior observed by advocates and/or medical staff in sex worker
victim cases includes:

A
focus on whether money was exchanged, and if so, a decision not to pursue the case.[395]

Police
repeatedly giving feedback such as, “I’ll take the report but
they’re not going to do anything about it because the person was high,”
or “the victim’s background is going to come out so it is not worth
following up.”[396]

Police
not treating an assault against a sex worker as a sexual assault, but rather as
a case where the victim was not paid.[397] For example, one exam
exemption report prepared by a nurse in 2011, quoted an officer as saying the patient
“frequently prostitutes herself and then comes to report if she has not
been paid enough money.”[398]

Human Rights Watch also noted that in one investigative file
for a case in which the complainant reported being assaulted in April 2009, the
detective seemed to question the victim’s credibility, noting that
“the complainant … admitted to being a prostitute in the
past.”[399]
This indicates that despite current efforts on the part of some detectives in
the SAU, the experience and perception of the sex worker community is that
crimes against them are not treated appropriately.

Sex worker lack of faith in police handling of assault
cases against them is a long standing problem that can be traced back to before
2008, as two surveys from that period indicate.[400]
One D.C. survey, for 2007 and 2008, indicated that 75 percent of sex workers
who had sought help from the police were dissatisfied with the response.[401]

To protect sex workers, an advocacy group has created a
“DC Bad Date Sheet” that describes people who have victimized sex
workers, their vehicle, if relevant, and the assault. The sheet is updated
every few weeks and usually then includes up to five new incidents of assaults,
which are often violent. Crimes on the sheet dated March 17, 2011, for example,
include robberies and physical and sexual assaults on sex workers by
perpetrators wielding guns, knives, a stun gun, and an ice pick.[402]

Advocates for sex workers said the victims had not reported
these violent assaults because police had in the past not believed victims who
reported their assaults or blamed them for engaging in risky behavior.[403]
Advocates estimate that of 60 to 70 annual assaults on sex workers, only 5
percent report to the police.[404]
In some cases, sex workers accuse police officers of being the perpetrators of
assault and one sex worker, in January 2012, told Human Rights Watch that some
officers are known for demanding sex in exchange for not arresting them.[405]

IV. Police Mistreatment of Victims

The investigating officer’s attitude and show of
concern can often determine whether or not the victim follows through to the
next step in the judicial process. — Metropolitan Police
Department, Standard Operating Procedures, Sexual Assault Unit, January 14,
2003, p. 19

If a victim does not feel comfortable with the police when
reporting a sexual assault, then the entire process can be undermined.
Furthermore, the mistreatment, or the appearance of mistreatment by the police
can deter others from bringing complaints forward. —Letter from MPD Chief
Cathy Lanier, Washington, D.C., June 8, 2012

I’ll never be able to stop shaking my head at the
fact that not only was he [the MPD detective] not supportive, he made me feel
awful about myself by telling me it was nothing more than an issue that I got
too drunk and was regretting a decision I made. It tore me up that he did not
believe me and he made it clear to me that he didn’t believe me.
Traumatized is the word that I felt from the investigator, in some ways, it was
worse than the event itself. —Shelly G., Washington
D.C., June 20, 2012

I think that filing the report was just as traumatic as the
crime, if not more.... Is it common place for the police to put blame on the
sexual assault victims and then completely ignore them? —Letter from sexual
assault victim in D.C. to Office of Police Complaints, about her treatment by
MPD detectives, November 12, 2009

If I were ever to be physically harmed, I would not trust a
D.C. police officer to ever do anything for me. I would not even think to call
a D.C. police officer to try to help me because it would not happen. —Rachel G., sexual
assault survivor, deposition transcript, April 1, 2008

An estimated one in five women in the United States is a
victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. However, studies indicate
that nationwide, less than 20 percent of rape or sexual assault victims
reported incidents to the police in 2007.[406]

Many sexual assault survivors choose not to seek help out of
fear that authorities will mistreat or not believe them.[407]
Unfortunately, this concern can be well founded. In D.C., testimony from several
observers and victims indicates that some MPD members treated victims insensitively
when they attempted to report a sexual assault.[408]

Police may not realize how potentially damaging their
interactions with victims can be. But negative police interactions can lead to
re-victimization of survivors of sexual assault and increase the likelihood
they will suffer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).[409]

Poor treatment of victims can also lead to botched or
dropped investigations.[410]
Prosecutors interviewed for this report stressed the importance of detectives
building relationships with victims and earning their trust in order to get
them to explain clearly what happened. [411]
One prosecutor said, “Cases rise and fall on the victim’s ability
to tell their story.”[412]
A positive initial contact with law enforcement is therefore very important.[413]
A victim who is treated well is also more likely to cooperate with prosecution,
significantly increasing chances that the perpetrator will be brought to
justice.

In contrast, not treating victims well may not only result
in letting a rapist go free, potentially to commit other crimes, it also
undermines public confidence in law enforcement. In many communities, word of
ill-treatment travels fast among social networks, making other victims less
likely to come forward.[414]
One person who has worked with sexual assault victims in D.C. for 10 years said,
“If I were assaulted I am not sure I would report. It is hard for me to
encourage people to go to the MPD when I think that process may be
re-traumatizing and harmful.”[415]

As described in detail in the subsections below, Human Rights
Watch documented the following re-victimizing or counter-productive behaviors
by MPD personnel:

Questioning
survivors’ credibility;

Actively
discouraging victims from reporting or undergoing a forensic exam;

Threatening
victims with prosecution if they are found to be lying;

Asking
victim-blaming or inappropriate questions;

Telling
victims that their stories are not serious enough to investigate; and

Failing
to keep victims informed of progress on their cases.

The findings are drawn from
accounts of witnesses and victims and corroborated by information found in
detectives’ files. When notified that Human Rights Watch considered
several of our findings substantiated by information included in investigators’
notes, Chief Lanier responded that it was a “cheap shot” and
“nonsensical that a detective would report his/her own mistreatment of a
victim.”[416] Chief Lanier also indicates that “HRW is
highlighting cases and selectively using the facts” and that “HRW
draws negative conclusions that do not include all of the relevant
facts.” However, notes in files, cited below, are indicative that
detectives may not realize their treatment of victims is inappropriate.

Human Rights Watch did not attempt
to identify particular detectives or officers engaged in this activity and it
is possible that the actions of a few are tainting perceptions of the unit as a
whole.[417] It is important to note that according to victims,
medical staff, and advocates, not all detectives in the MPD’s SAU behave
insensitively to victims.[418] One witness recalled observing a detective behaving
sensitively to a toothless, homeless, male victim who she feared would be
treated poorly.[419]

Many of the prosecutors interviewed
for this report at the MPD’s request emphasized that a number of
detectives in the unit do very good work,[420] are good at making victims feel “comfortable,”[421] are “inspiring,” and “don’t
get the credit they deserve.”[422] New detectives were singled out for praise.[423] Some prosecutors were able to give examples of difficult
cases that were successfully prosecuted because of the efforts a detective made
to work with the victim.[424]

But the prosecutors also acknowledged
that other detectives “shouldn’t be doing this kind of work at all,”[425] “don’t want to be there,”[426] “are not good at making victims feel
comfortable,”[427] or are less likely to believe victims,[428] and “they would be happy to have some
[detectives] go.”[429] When assigned a case with those detectives, the
prosecutor thinks, “I wish I got someone else.”[430]

However, the breadth of observations in this report raises
concerns about institutional tolerance of re-victimizing behavior by those
detectives known not to interact well with victims. Also, even detectives
praised by prosecutors for their positive victim interactions were the subject
of some complaints detailed below, which further illustrates the importance of
training and accountability for all detectives. Though some have noted
improvements in recent months, any improvement has to be durable and systemic
in order to have impact.

The MPD should act quickly to
address instances in which detectives behave inappropriately.

Questioning
Survivors’ Credibility

A significant barrier to successful investigation of sexual
assault is the persistent belief among some law enforcement officers that
victims fabricate sexual assaults out of vindictiveness or to cover up behavior
that they regret. Studies show that the rate of false reporting for sexual
assault is low (2-10 percent),[431]
yet all too often, law enforcement treats reports of sexual assault with
skepticism.[432]
Victims treated with suspicion are less likely to cooperate with police, making
investigation even less likely.[433]

The MPD policy explicitly states that “members shall
not express any personal opinions regarding alleged sexual offenses”
during a sexual assault investigation.[434]
Still, police skepticism about reports of sexual assault is a problem reported
by victims and those who have witnessed police interaction with victims in
Washington D.C.[435]
Narratives in investigative files reviewed by Human Rights Watch corroborate
this perception.

Some who work with victims in D.C. estimate that in
“easily half” of all cases, victims have the impression that police
do not believe them.[436]
A person who has worked for years to support victims in D.C. said the biggest
problem she finds is victims saying, “The detective didn’t believe
me.”[437]
Another veteran on these issues said some detectives “start from an
assumption that the victim is lying until proven otherwise.”[438]
The head of SANE until December 2009 also said victims used to ask her,
“Why did the police talk to me like that? They don’t believe me.”[439]
One victim, Shelly G., was exasperated and asked her detective if he believed
her. He made it clear he did not.[440]

The testimony provided in the 2008 lawsuit against the
District of Columbia, indicates that police skepticism about victims seeking
forensic exams has existed for some time. A former SAU supervisor testified in
2008 that,

[I]t’s not an uncommon practice for females to
come to the hospital to get a sex kit for various reasons, to not include [seeking
to report a] criminal [offense] … They may come because they went out on
a date, don’t know who they slept with, get the morning after pill, get
contraceptives for STDs.[441]

Police investigative files from
later periods indicate that this skepticism persists among some detectives, who
believe victims choose to undergo extensive forensic exams only to get a
morning after pill or treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. This belief
has no objective basis, however, as access to health care and emergency
contraception (the morning after pill) is not limited to sexual assault
victims. Both services can be obtained without submitting to an invasive,
lengthy forensic examination or potentially difficult police interview.

The following are examples from case files in which
detectives indicated a belief that the victim was undergoing a forensic exam
for reasons other than sexual assault:

An
investigator notes a May 2009 case of a woman who had limited speech and
comprehension who was with friends in the neighborhood smoking weed when one of
the guys “got rough with her and told her to pull her pants down.”
She complied, although she did not want to do it. The detective wrote,
“The problem is that she has a serious itching problem in the vaginal
area and told her power of attorney that she needed help.” The case was
classified as an “office information” because, the detective noted,
the victim just wanted medical attention.[442]

In
Estella’s case (described further below) in May 2010, Estella wanted a
forensic exam because she was reporting a sexual assault. But her detective
wrote in her report that “after realizing that the [subject] did not
sexually assault her, the complainant still insisted upon having a SANE
examination. She stated that she wants to ensure she is not pregnant and did not
get a disease” and “was upset about the fact he did not use a
condom.”[443] According to Estella, the
detective asked her, “Do you really want to file a report or do you just
want meds?”[444]

In
the file for Susan’s 2011 case, the detective indicates she had a forensic
exam because the suspect did not use a condom and she wanted to take the
morning after pill and get checked out.[445]

In
a March 2011 case, the detective indicates the victim went through with a SANE
exam at WHC because Providence hospital does not give morning after pills.[446]

In the aftermath of trauma,
victims often make statements that are inconsistent or incomplete. They may
also seek to hide or minimize unflattering behavior out of fear that they will
not be believed or that they will be blamed for their assault. If police
respond by treating victims with suspicion and interrogating them when
confronted with gaps in their stories, they may sabotage the investigation. For
that reason, it is very important that the detective create a non-judgmental
environment and not convey disbelief during the victim interview. Assessments
about inconsistencies can be made after conducting an investigation.

Skepticism of a victim’s account during an initial
interview is apparent in some detectives’ investigative notes:

Detective
notes of an interview with a victim immediately after her assault in the fall
of 2011 say, “There are many inconsistencies in her account of the
alleged sexual assault,” such as that the victim said the suspect hit her
and then said he kicked and punched her. The crime scene was listed as
“Allegedly the suspect’s bedroom.” Notes state that the
suspect hit the complainant on the eye when he forced her on the bed, “but
that might have been an accident.”[447]

Detective
notes from a December 2010 case read, “This investigation should be
classified as a sexual abuse allegation. [Complainant] does not report exactly
what happened to her. C states ‘he took advantage of me, he raped
me’ ‘he forced himself in me and raped me.’ She does not
explain how she was forced and how she was sexually abused. [Complainant]
provides contradictory statements. [Complainant’s] version of events is
full of inconsistencies. She identifies herself as suffering from schizophrenia
and depression. Both officers reported to know [complainant] as local crack
user and prostitute.”[448]

In
an early 2010 case in which the victim reported she was forced to orally
copulate a stranger, the police notes indicate skepticism about the report. The
complainant, a deaf student, told police that after a night of drinking with
classmates, she blacked out and woke up on an unknown street between 2:30 and
3:00 a.m. She told detectives that as she was walking a large man came up and
was “gusting” her for a drink. She walked faster but he followed
her and grabbed her sweater and took her into an alley and told her to sit
down. The detective wrote, “[Complainant] stated that the big black man
pulled down his pants and she sucked his penis, only because she did not know
if he had a gun or a knife or what he was going to do…. The complainant
does not mention any force or threats or how she knew to suck suspect’s
penis.” In a second interview the detective noted, “The
[complainant] did not describe any force or threats during this alleged
altercation … [the complainant] describes the assailant making a motion
by pointing to his genitals that he wanted his penis sucked.”[449] The case was not assigned a
case number and no investigation was done.

A delay in reporting, even if brief, can raise questions
about a victim’s credibility. In two investigative files reviewed by
Human Rights Watch, detective notes indicate “the complainant was asked
what her delay in making the report sooner was,” even though the
complainant reported the day after the assault.[450]

Notes from an October 2010 case
classified as “office information” state, “It should be noted
that [complainant] waited over 12 hours before requesting medical services and
police assistance.”[451] In Estella’s case, the detective wrote,
“Once home, the [complainant] pondered over what had transpired and felt
that she had been raped. Therefore she responded to the district.”[452] Estella went to the police department within an
hour of her assault.

Detectives convey their mistrust of victims both directly
and indirectly.[453]

In Maya’s case in April 2011
(see text box), the detective repeatedly told her that “no one would
believe” her and that she was “lying” and “wasting
their time.”[454] In 2009, a detective told another victim, Dolores R.,
“It seems like you’re telling me a story and it isn’t
yours.”[455] One witness saw a detective look at a patient and
tell her she was not sexually assaulted.[456] Bystanders have heard detectives raise their voices
to victims and ask, “Why are you here?”[457] A person who works with survivors reported,
“I have had police walk out of the room and say ‘She is lying to
us.’”[458]

Others also report that some detectives go so far as to
explicitly threaten victims with arrest on charges of false reporting. Apart
from Rachel G. (see box above), three other victims, all of whom had cases
after 2009 (after reforms were implemented), told Human Rights Watch that they
were threatened with prosecution for false reporting.[459]
People who work with victims also report having heard detectives stressing to
victims that filing a false report is unlawful and carries penalties.[460]
One member of the medical staff recalls hearing a detective explicitly say,
“If I find out you are lying, I will look you up and arrest you.”[461]

These may not be isolated incidents. During a training of
Rape Crisis Center volunteers, one former volunteer remembers an SAU detective
saying, “‘We make it very clear to survivors that there is a
penalty for false reporting.’ He said that if anything seemed off, they
repeatedly remind the victim that they cannot false report.”[462]

The form of questioning may also
reveal police doubts about a victim’s story. Some describe police as
“hunting for a good victim” and treating survivors as they would be
treated in court.[463] Jennifer W. described her experience in a complaint
to the Office of Police Complaints in May 2007. She was assaulted at her
workplace and reported the incident to her supervisor, who reported the crime
to police. Jennifer met with two SAU detectives whose “confrontational,
insensitive manner” she found “very degrading and humiliating.”

They seemed to be questioning my integrity … they
would not allow me to answer in full, interrupting me repeatedly (e.g. ‘That
is a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question, Ma’am!’)

They … made it obvious they had a pre-conceived
notion of the incident that had occurred and that they did not find my
testimony credible. Both officers persistently asked me humiliating, irrelevant
questions regarding the assault … They did not attempt to understand my
position or feelings or what I was going through.[464]

If the victim has a criminal record, it may contribute to
police doubts about her report of sexual assault. The head of the SANE program from
2008 to 2009 said that during her time, detectives would sometimes run a
victim’s name through the system; if he or she had a record, they brought
it up in the police interview.[465]
Advocates and victims corroborated this. Six police investigative files
reviewed by Human Rights Watch referred to a detective running a
complainant’s name through the system to check their criminal record
before interviewing the victim. In one August 2011 case, the detective noted,

Upon conducting a WALES [Washington Area Law Enforcement
database] check, [the complainant] was found to be wanted on a bench warrant.
[Complainant] was placed under arrest.[466]

In another case, a detective wrote,
“A check through WALES and Colombo indicates the [complainant] has been
arrest [sic] for soliciting in the same area where she alleges her assault
occurred.”[467]

Running a record check on victims is not necessarily
problematic (if a routine practice with all crime victims), but existence of an
unrelated criminal issue should not be used to discount a victim’s
complaint of sexual assault. Yet advocates indicated that, in their experience,
if a victim’s name comes up in the system, the police do not believe him
or her.[468]
A victim complained to an advocate in August of 2011 that she believed her case
was not being followed up because of her record.[469]
Maya T., too, was asked about her criminal record when she reported her assault
in April 2011, as part of a general pattern of questioning that indicated the
detective doubted her credibility.[470]

In other cases, victims who spoke to Human Rights Watch said
that they were left with the impression that the detective simply took the
suspect’s word over theirs. Susan D., the US government employee who was
assaulted on a date in spring 2011, said the detective assigned to her case
interviewed the suspect. Afterwards, the detective told Susan that the suspect
had acknowledged sexual contact, but claimed it was consensual. When Susan pointed
out that this contradicted an earlier statement by the suspect that nothing
happened, the detective said the suspect had not known his earlier statement
was being recorded, and “Why would he lie?” Susan said, “I
felt like my credibility was less than the assailant. The only follow-up was to
blame me.”[471]
The investigative file for Susan’s case seems to confirm her impression
of bias. It contained a one page “bio of the subject” listing his
various “academic and leadership achievements.” No other note of
his statement (or of the victim’s impressive credentials) was in the file.[472]

In Maya’s case, detectives also told her they had spoken
with the suspects and believed their version of events—that it was
consensual — over hers, even though she had been found locked in a room.
In that case, the police did not even open an investigation but instead filed a
“miscellaneous” report, or “office information.”[473]
A review of the investigative file indicated that Maya’s impression that
the police took the suspects at their word was correct.[474]
(See text box)

In notes from an October 2011 investigative file, the
detective’s skepticism of the victim is apparent from her description of
the complainant as “combative and very evasive” and the list of “inconsistencies”
described above in the warrant request. The detective notes “Canvass:
None. S-1 (Suspect) stood by on scene and was cooperative. Said it was
consensual and he used a condom.”[475]

Unwillingness to believe victims is
sometimes conveyed by body language. One witness described an interviewing
technique she witnessed in which two detectives interview the victim. One
stands with his arms crossed while the other questions the victim. Sometimes
they tag team, “seemingly looking for inconsistencies in the
victim’s story.”[476] Other advocates also describe detectives giving victims
the impression that they are annoyed to have to come and take a report.[477] Estella C. reported that her detective rolled her
eyes repeatedly when she was telling her about her sexual assault.[478] Susan D. reported that her detective “made
several facial expressions during the interview, such as exaggeratingly raising
her eyebrows,” that made it clear that what Susan was telling her was
problematic.[479]

Displaying disbelief to a victim
appears especially acute when the victim has been drinking. One advocate
expressed her concern regarding a deaf victim of sexual assault in a 2009 email
that was forwarded to the Office of Victims Services (OVS) in the Mayor’s
Office:

The detective was awful. Completely intimidating,
didn’t believe her, and told her there was no case number because it
wasn’t rape since she ‘consented.’… I warned the
survivor upon meeting the detective that she would be harsh and to stay strong
and tell her everything she can remember. Turns out it was a stranger who she
met at a party after her friends left her there. (She was visiting from [out of
town]) ... the guy took advantage of her (she was drunk) and told her to sleep
with him otherwise [he] would kick her out to sleep on the street.

The detective was in the room with the interpreter, and two
other female officers and after 40 min, the survivor was literally hysterical …
the nurses and I could hear it from outside the room … she was sobbing
and yelling (as loud as she could while signing)…. We interrupted and the
detective told us ‘We’ll be done when I say we’re done.’
Two min later, they walked out of the room … the detective told me there
would be no case and told me to go see her.[480]

Although memory lapses are commonly associated with trauma,[481]
detectives appear to disbelieve victims if they do not remember elements of the
assault. Examples provided to Human Rights Watch include:

An observer recalled a woman who was new to town and had
gone out to a bar with acquaintances. When she got home she was pulled
into a neighbor’s yard and raped by a stranger. When she could not
remember the name of the bar she had visited, a police officer said, “How
can you not remember? How can we believe you?”[482]

Julie M. was a student at a local university when a
stranger assaulted her on campus after she had been drinking. She went to WHC
the next day and reported the incident to the police, who interviewed her
there and wanted to know what the man looked like. “It was hard for
me to remember it because I was trying to block out what he looked like,”
she said, adding that she felt police did not believe her because she did
not report the incident to campus police and couldn’t give the

specific location and description.[483]
Julie said the police did not follow up with her about her complaint
because the case was closed.

Skepticism about sexual assault
goes beyond detectives in the SAU. A community member on a police ride-along
was present when police were called to respond to a sexual assault report. Even
though there were several police in the area, they did not respond until they
were called a second time. The community member said that she heard officers
say about the crime, “You can only cry rape so many times,” and “Sexual
assault cases—too much paperwork.”[484] An attorney who previously worked with the MPD
recalled a detective saying to her about a victim, “You know how 13-year-old
girls are. They just make stuff up.”[485]

Additional Illustrative
Cases

A
victim reported waking up from being unconscious and intoxicated in August of
2011 to find an acquaintance grabbing her neck and placing a pillow over her
head. He then orally copulated her and vaginally penetrated her without her
consent. The victim told him “No.” The detective notes say,
“If that was the case, we should assume she would not be able to see or
speak.” The detective also indicates that she changed her mind about
reporting because a counselor told her if she reported, shelters were available
to her. The case was upgraded from an “allegation” to a sex abuse
case only after the suspect admitted to penetration.[486]

A
case from fall 2011 in which the victim reported being hit and vaginally
assaulted by three suspects while intoxicated. The detective notes as an
“inconsistency” that the complainant did not elaborate on what
drinks she had or what liquor was used to make the drinks. She also
“admitted she smoked weed.”[487]

In
a January 2009 case the victim was found barefoot, with no coat, and injured,
with no recollection of where she was. Concerned citizens called an ambulance,
which took her to the hospital for a forensic exam because the medics believed
she had been sexually assaulted. The detective notes indicate that
“Officers advised that [when] a lot of the female patrons left this same
nightclub, they were not wearing their coats or shoes.”[488]

Advocates and Counselors

Using an
advocate or counselor to assist victims through the investigative process can
be beneficial to both victims and law enforcement.[489] One victim, Suzy N., who had an
advocate with her when she reported in California in July 2011, said,
“Just having someone who believed me was very important. She was
supportive and emotionally helpful. She helped me feel like I could testify
[give a statement].”[490]

Model
policies and guidelines recommend contacting a victim advocate as soon as
possible to provide assistance for victims throughout the investigative
process. This includes the forensic exam, law enforcement interviews, pretext
phone calls (when the victim is asked to call the suspect on a recorded
line), and interviews with the prosecutor.[491] At least eight states (Washington,
California, Iowa, New York, Louisiana, Wyoming, Washington, and Montana) have
laws explicitly giving victims the right to have an advocate present with
them at the time of questioning by law enforcement.[492]

Advocates
may be community-based (such as advocates at a local rape crisis center) or
system-based (a victim advocate employed by law enforcement or the
prosecutor’s office). They provide emotional support for victims during
law enforcement interviews and ensure victims’ rights are protected. If
having an advocate present for the interview is not possible, it is still
valuable to have an advocate (or support person) on-site to provide emotional
support and information to the victim before and after the interview or
procedure.[493]

The
presence of an advocate also allows detectives to focus on the questioning,
knowing that the victim’s emotional needs will be taken care of. And
detectives find victims more likely to report and more likely to remain
engaged in the investigation if they have an advocate. Indeed, studies show
that victims are more likely to have a police report taken (59 percent v. 41
percent) and law enforcement is more likely to investigate the case further
(24 percent v. 8 percent) when an advocate is involved.[494]

Discouraging Forensic Exams
and Reports

An MPD Special Order dating from 2001 sets forth police
department policy on sexual assault exams:

The detective shall explain to the victim the critical need
for a forensic examination and encourage the victim to use the services
available through the SANE Program. The detective shall explain the benefits of
the program and answer questions the victim may have.[495]

However, several people who work
with victims said they try to get to the hospital before police, who may otherwise
talk victims out of getting an exam or filing a complaint.[496] Some medical staff expressly told Human Rights
Watch that for this reason, they would prefer if a victim took an ambulance or
taxi to the hospital rather than be brought in by police.[497]

Advocates and contemporaneous documentation by nurses
confirm a number of people, after speaking with police, decide not to get an
exam or report a sexual assault when they had initially asked for an exam and
sought to report to law enforcement.[498]
Detective notes in files reviewed by Human Rights Watch corroborate witness
testimony that victims are sometimes discouraged from getting forensic exams.

In some cases, victims decide not to report their sexual
assault after police indicate their case would not hold up in court.[499]
The 2009 SANE director said she knew of victims being told, “There is
nothing we can do,” or “You don’t meet the criteria for
sexual assault.”[500]
Other times, police discouraged victims from reporting by saying that they
would have to tell loved ones about their behavior or by stressing the serious
consequences to the perpetrator of pursuing the case. According to a college
counselor, students are sometimes told, “If you go forward with this
case, your parents are going to know you have been drinking.”[501]

One observer estimated that in her experience, nine times
out of ten the decision not to report may be because of something police told
the victim.[502]
Examples of police comments that have the effect of discouraging reporting and
forensic testing include:

When Dolores R., who was assaulted as a student at a
university in D.C. in 2009, tried to get a sexual assault exam at her
university hospital, campus police called the MPD. The SAU detective who
came to the hospital told her she would have to transfer to another
hospital to get an exam, that it was a long process, and perhaps she
“didn’t want to go through all that.” The detective
implied she had to speak to the police to get a forensic exam, though
Dolores wasn’t sure she wanted to report the sexual assault. Dolores
later discovered that WHC was only down the street. The detective also
made it clear she had her doubts about Dolores’ story, and that it
was not a strong enough case to hold up in court. Dolores did not report
her assault or get an exam.[503]

When one married victim, Laura T., attempted to report her
sexual assault in late 2011, the detective told her he would have to
inform her husband in order to proceed with his investigation. “I
then asked him please don’t and he said ok – and then he
handed me a form to deny ongoing investigation [decline an investigation]
so therefore I signed it.”[504]

In November 2010, a complainant reported a strange man had
broken into her home and physically and sexually assaulted her roommate.
She told the officer she was worried her roommate had been sexually
assaulted because she was bleeding and her clothes were ripped. She said
the officer “dismissively said ‘you can take her to the
hospital if you want.’” The officer also told her “no
crime had been committed and there was nothing he could do unless the man
had threatened to kill us.”[505]

In an early 2010 case, a complainant who had been using
drugs reported that a suspect threatened to kill her if she did not do
what he said, threw her on a bed, punched her in the face, and then
vaginally and orally assaulted her. Detective notes indicate the
complainant was asked repeatedly by different members of the MPD about her
“alleged sexual assault.” Though she initially wanted a
forensic exam, she eventually refused to have one and signed a waiver
stating she did not want to pursue the case.[506]

In six other cases, detectives’ notes indicate that they
asked victims to sign a form stating they did not want to make a report during
their initial interview immediately after their assault. Unless arrest is
imminent, experts advise against asking victims to sign waivers of
investigations or prosecutions before conducting thorough, evidence-based
investigations.[507]
The practice is particularly advised against for cases in which the detective
has decided not to investigate because he or she does not believe the victim.[508]

Hostility toward victim reporting is apparent in a June 2009
email from one detective to another about a victim he met at the hospital who
had initially not wanted to report but had changed her mind. He wrote,

I found out you dealt with her about 4 am Friday or
Saturday morning … and she chose not to make a report. Something about a
gang bang and being intoxicated.… Anyway, I think it was just an OI
[Office Information]. However, she now feels differently and wishes to make a
report…. She says her phone isn’t working but she can be reached …
Sorry, BUT IT IS WHAT IT IS!!!!!!![509]

Apart from discouraging reporting, witnesses and a review of
police documents indicate that law enforcement sometimes also discourage
victims from getting forensic exams, despite police policy to encourage exams. Although
law enforcement has not had a role in determining whether a victim gets a forensic
evidence kit since late 2008, when federal law requirements for funding changed,
as discussed below, law enforcement officers may still sometimes indicate to
nurses that a victim should not have an exam.[510]
For example:

In 2009, a nurse report noted a female detective who
arrived to interview a patient (pt.) and “stated that she
hadn’t interviewed the pt. and she (the detective) would make the
determination as to whether or not an exam (SANE) needed to be done
… that it was her decision if there was even a criminal case.”[511]

In a February 2011 miscellaneous case in which the victim
was highly intoxicated and woke up with her clothes partially off and
inside out, the detective notes say, “The [complainant] wanted to go
to the hospital. The detective called the SANE nurse to let her know that
there was a complainant coming in who wanted a kit done and that this is NOT
a sex case. No crime occurred.” The complainant did have a kit
done and the detective notes the “kit was turned over to mobil [sic]
crime as no case.”[512]

In the January 2009 case in which the victim was found injured,
barefoot, and with no coat, in response to a question from a nurse about
the scope of the exam, the “Detective advised no SANE examination
required by MPD as [the complainant] reported no crime.” Though it
was unclear if the complainant was missing her underwear when she arrived
at the hospital, the “detective said there was no need for [clothing]
evidence as the [complainant] was not a victim of a crime.”[513]

SART meeting minutes from March 2011 indicate that the
Department of Justice’s Office on Violence against Women contacted
the OVS because of a complaint from an advocacy group stating that “victims
of sexual assault cannot get a forensic exam without first talking to the
police.”[514]

Conversely, police have sometimes
given the absence of a forensic medical exam as a reason not to investigate a
case. One observer reported, “I have heard detectives ask why they did
not get a rape kit or why they delayed in coming forward…. In those cases
they won’t even interview perpetrators at all. Never does the client hear
from the MPD. The MPD will often say the survivor doesn’t have a kit so
it is hard to move forward.”[515] She also noted that when the victim knows the
perpetrator, they are more likely to choose not to get an exam.[516]

Some experts estimate that, nationwide, only a minority of
victims disclose their sexual assault during the period (96 to 120 hours) where
a forensic exam is warranted.[517]
A study of hundreds of cases in the Los Angeles area in 2008 found that in half
the cases in which victims reported to police they had undergone a forensic
exam.[518]

In a number of files Human Rights
Watch reviewed, the report noted the lack of an exam as a reason for closing
the case. For example, a November 2010 case was closed and described as a “weak
case, no evidence since [complainant] refused to respond for a SANE exam,”
with the detective also noting the importance of the SANE exam. However, apart
from the complainant interview, no investigation of the case (such as an
interview with the suspect who had been identified or a “report of
rape” witness who had spoken with the complainant immediately after the
assault) is apparent in the investigative file.[519] In a 2011 case, the complainant reported that a
named suspect raped her, but she was intoxicated at the time of her report and
unclear about the details. The detective noted, “By refusing to be
examined, the [complainant] hampered any attempt to collect any evidence or
sustain that a sexual assault ever occurred. Based on those factors, the report
is classified as office information.”[520]

Interviewees also said that police
have been reluctant over the years to collect forensic evidence kits from the
hospital. Detectives are responsible for ensuring the kit is hand-delivered to the
mobile crime lab or the crime scene investigative branch.[521] SAU Standard Operating Procedures stress the
“timely and proper collection, preservation, submission, and
chain-of-custody of sex kits and evidence is crucial to sex abuse
investigations.”[522] Furthermore, the General Order governing police
investigation of sexual assault states the SAU detective should pick up the kit
and deliver it to the Crime Scene Investigations Branch, Forensic Science
Services Division (FSSD), within 24 hours of the exam’s completion.[523]

Although this policy has been in place since 2001, until
recently, several medical staff at the hospital described getting police to
pick up kits from the hospital to take to the lab as “a battle”
that required several calls and emails.[524] A safe
intended to store kits for people who had not decided whether to report was
repurposed in 2009 to hold kits awaiting police pick-up. Investigative files
from 2009 show some kits awaiting pick-up for over four months. However, reports
reviewed by Human Rights Watch show significantly improved pick-up time since
2011.[525]

Contemporaneous emails from nurses
in 2009 reveal tension between nurses and police about the kits, with
detectives saying nurses did not tell them what to do with the kits, and nurses
asserting that it felt like they had to “jump through a lot of
hoops” to get kits picked up.[526] Minutes from SART meetings at the time reveal a
direct, and predictable, link between police reluctance to pick up kits and a
decision by police not to investigate some cases at all. Minutes from an April
2009 meeting referred to “renewed discussion” about what to do with
kits when the MPD has decided not to investigate, but a Sexual Assault Nurse
Examiner had collected evidence. “This can’t be a non-report
because the victim did report,” the minutes said, “but MPD does not
want to take custody of the kit since they already know they are not moving
forward with the case.”[527] Three other minutes from that year discussed the
problem of kits falling into the category of “reports without investigation.”[528]

The MPD states that “MPD immediately addressed the
issue” when it was brought to their attention in 2009 and that as of June
2012, they had collected all kits.[529]
However several people in early 2011 told Human Rights Watch that the storage
safe was always full (it holds up to twelve kits)[530]
and medical staff reported how one detective said outright, “You can
collect evidence if you want, but I’m not going to do anything with
it.”[531]

In the early 2011 case of a
complainant who had only two drinks but blacked out while driving, sensitive
blood and urine sat for weeks in the refrigerator awaiting pick-up for testing
while detectives debated who had jurisdiction since the location of the crime
was unclear.[532]

Medical staff said they found it harder to do their jobs if
they believed the forensic evidence kits would just sit on the shelf, because
they feared the lengthy and invasive exams they conducted re-victimized
survivors.[533]
“Sometimes I feel like, ‘what am I doing this for?’”
one said.[534]
There also may be evidentiary consequences. An expert toxicologist told Human
Rights Watch, “Deterioration of any organic chemicals will occur over
time. If they [the police] don’t come, there will be some loss of
something.”[535]

Following notification of this
report’s initial findings on May 30, 2012, the MPD instituted a policy
requiring all forensic kits to be picked up from WHC within three days of a sexual
abuse or sexual allegation report. An audit of kits will be conducted weekly by
an SAU official.[536]

Additional Cases in
Which Police Discouraged Reporting or Forensic Exams

Shelly G. was told in October 2009 that forensic results
“would take years” to come back. An examination of her
investigative file showed that the results were returned within four
months, by which time her case had already been closed for three months.[537]

An observer recalled that in Susan D.’s case, after
she reported being assaulted by someone she met on an internet dating
site, the detective told Susan she had “led her assailant on”
and had no case. The detective almost convinced Susan not to file a
report.[538]
The detective also told Susan ’s nurse and Susan, “I
don’t think she needs a SANE exam.”[539]

An observer described an incident in August 2011 involving
a young woman, whom friends found in a room at a house party with her
pants off. Concerned after seeing a man leave the room, the friends called
an ambulance. The victim had been intoxicated and could not remember what
happened. According to an advocate, the detective who responded said,
“OK, so why am I here?” She did not leave a card or sign in at
the hospital (as protocol requires) and dismissed the victim’s
concerns about the sexual assault, though the victim wanted to make a
report.[540]

When Maya T. reported, police asked, "You are going
to give that man 23 years for rape ... 23 years ... do you know what that
does?"[541]

Susan D. said that the message she got from the detective
when she reported was: “You are going to ruin his life.”[542]
Susan felt she was being discouraged from reporting and stated, “I feel
like I was being intimidated and that she was implying that I should think
twice about my story because this would have serious consequences for this
man and that she didn’t think that what had happened was
rape.”[543]
The detective’s notes state that Susan “didn’t want to
get him[the suspect] in trouble” but do not mention that she told Susan
that if she “wanted to file a report [the detective] would show up
at his place of employment the very next morning and arrest him and that
he would probably be fired from his job.”[544]

Detective notes from a closed September 2008 case indicate
the complainant “did not want to file criminal charges against the
defendant which could lead to the ruining of the defendant’s future
ambitions.”[545]

Medical staff recalled a case when police, frustrated with
a victim who changed her story many times, said in front of her, “I
don’t know if this warrants a kit.”[546]

In an April 2010 case, detective notes say, “I
advised [Nurse] that I was not authorizing an exam at this point, but
would be responding to her location to interview complainant.”[547]

Investigative notes from a detective in September 2011 regarding
a victim who did not recall what had happened to her after leaving a club
but was seen by a friend with an unknown man and woke up with no underwear
and missing some personal items from her house read, “The
undersigned advised that she is welcome to submit to a SANE examination.
However, the only thing the exam would possibly yield is that either
someone had sexual intercourse with her or not.”[548]

Victim-Blaming

As part of an investigation, detectives may need to ask sensitive
questions about victim behavior. Questions about inconsistencies, drug or
alcohol consumption, and consensual sexual activity are legitimate. However,
this information can be collected without traumatizing victims. For example,
questions about high-risk behavior such as drug use or prostitution can be seen
as an indication that the detective blames or doubts the victim. Explaining why
it is important for victims to provide this information makes it more likely
the victim will cooperate.[549]

However, HRW spoke with victims who described how they were
asked questions about consensual sexual activity and alcohol use in a manner
which made them feel that the questioning officer did not believe an assault
had taken place at all, or that it was not an incident that they would be interested
in following up.[550]
This impression was reinforced in the review of investigative files. In several
files it appeared that some detectives inordinately focused on risk-taking
behavior by the victim during the initial interview and then used it as a
reason not to continue the investigation. Investigations in which
victim’s behavior was in question often seemed to be dropped after the initial
interview or were classified as “office information.” Factors such
as a victim’s alcohol intake or other similar behavior should never
preclude a thorough investigation of the case.

Several survivors and people who
work closely with survivors said that police in D.C. often question victims or
make comments in a manner suggesting the victim is at fault.[551] One medical professional said she heard police
appearing to blame the victim with questions and comments that included
“You shouldn’t have been out so late,” “For God’s
sake, why did you do that?” or “Why did you walk home by yourself
after a few drinks?”[552]

Survivors reported the following examples:

Estella C.
was assaulted by an acquaintance in May 2010 as they sat in his van talking. Immediately
afterwards, Estella reported the assault to a detective, who rolled her eyes when
Estella told her that she had told the assailant she did not want to have sex. Estella’s
sense of guilt about having sat in the truck at all was intensified by the
detective, who asked why she had not fled the vehicle or hit her acquaintance.[553] The detective’s interview notes confirm
Estella’s impression and state that “[Estella] advised that at the
time it did not dawn on her to get out of the suspect’s vehicle and
advise the police that she felt she had been raped.”[554] The detective described Estella’s actions as
“being responsive and accepting of the [subject’s] sexual
behavior.” The notes also indicate that Estella told the suspect “No,”
that she was saving herself for her boyfriend, placed her hand over her vagina,
and was crying during the assault (and during the police interview immediately
after the assault)—yet the notes fail to draw the conclusion that this
might have also provided the suspect with an indication that penetration was
not consensual.[555]

Dolores R.,
a university student who police talked out of reporting her assault in 2009, said
the detective asked her, “Why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t
you call a friend? Why didn’t you call a cab?” Dolores said, “I
did what I did and I can’t change that.”[556]

Another
victim writes in 2009 that a female SAU detective to whom she tried to report
an assault told her that if someone did something to her that she did not like
she “would say no or tell them to stop.” She said the detective also
asked “if [she] didn’t want them to do it, why [she] didn’t
stop them.”[557]

People who work with survivors similarly describe MPD victim-blaming:

Medical staff overheard a detective tell an 18-year-old
runaway who was assaulted in the middle of the night, “You
shouldn’t have been outside. This is what happens at two in the
morning. What do you expect?”[558]

A victim reporting an assault who was wearing a short
skirt told a lawyer that the responding officer and the detective investigating
her case commented on her outfit. The victim was very upset and no longer
wanted to work with the officers.[559]

One
member of the medical staff witnessed detectives indicating that the victim
asked for it if they dressed a certain way or saying things such as, “You
were invited to his house. What do you expect?” or “You know how it
is at parties.”[560]

Even if the detective doubts a
victim, questioning should not take the form of an interrogation. It may be
necessary to ask difficult and potentially embarrassing questions about a
victim’s conduct, but detectives should preface the questions with an
explanation so as not to give the appearance of blaming the victim, which can
be traumatizing. However, in addition to witness descriptions above, notes from
detectives’ files indicate that questioning may in some cases be
confrontational and upsetting to victims. For example:

In
a December 2011 case of a non-stranger assault that was listed as a
misdemeanor, the notes indicate, “The complainant stated that she did not
scream or holler or even fight suspect off of her...” Later the detective
notes that the complainant “appears to be avoiding undersigned
detective.” The case was closed after the victim refused to return the
detective’s calls. [561]

Detective
notes for a February 2010 case in which a complainant reported being assaulted
by a man in a van who had given her a ride and then attempting to call the
police from a nearby 7/11 store afterward read, “When questioned why she
did not try to get away from [the suspect] she added that the suspect had a
knife, a gun, a shovel and tools in the van making her afraid. When questioned
about her calling the police from a non-existing 7/11 within the area of the
offense, she changed it to say that it was a store.… When questioned why
her clothes were not stained, dirty, torn or wet from laying on the snow while
being raped, she claimed not to know…”[562]

In
an April 2009 case, a complainant reported being assaulted after stopping at a
gas station. The notes say, “when challenged about the purchase, and what
the teller looked like, the complainant changed her story…”[563]

Staff at colleges in D.C. who work with police and students
on these issues also found that police response to sexual assaults—which
often takes the form of warning students to lock their doors and not walk home
alone late at night—can be problematic.

In 2010, for example, police implied that a sleeping student
who was sexually assaulted in an off-campus house was partially to blame for
the crime that happened. An MPD lieutenant is reported as having stated,
“This was a preventable crime.... Students have to lock their doors and
protect themselves by staying in groups.” The victim had in fact locked
her door with a deadbolt. The perpetrator had removed her air conditioning unit
and climbed in through her window.[564]

Staff said they felt police did not appreciate the need for
a more balanced approach that included focusing on perpetrator accountability
and encouraging women to report assaults.[565]
In addition, while advice about locking doors and not walking alone at night is
appropriate when it comes to avoiding falling victim to crime in general, it
ignores the reality that most sexual assaults are committed by non-strangers.

Additional Cases of
Victim-Blaming

Michelle B., a student, reported an assault by an
acquaintance in her dorm in October 2008. When she went to MPD to report,
she felt she was interrogated. She said she was asked if she was lying and
if she “had a sexy nightgown on,” causing her to feel that
police blamed her for the assault.[566]

A victim who was assaulted by her ex-boyfriend and
attempted to report the assault to the police in the spring of 2008 was
repeatedly asked why she let him in. When she expressed frustration about
the questioning, she said the officer “walked over to the person who
assaulted me and began laughing with him.”[567]

Eleanor G. said that the first question the police photographer
asked her when he met her at the emergency room following her stabbing and
attempted rape in an alley in May 2011 was, “Why didn’t you
just give him your purse?”[568]

In an
October 2011 case, the “complainant was asked in what manner the
defendant took her pants off. The complainant went on to relate she took her
jeans off herself. There are many inconsistencies with her account of her alleged
sexual assault.”[569]

A
March 2011 case in which the victim, a diabetic, did not recall what had
happened after drinking: “The complainant acknowledged that she does not
know the effects alcohol has on a diabetic with an out of control glucose
level.”[570]

A
January 2010 case in which the victim had consensual oral sex with the suspect
but made it clear she would not have intercourse. When they moved from one
location to another, the detective noted, “I asked [the complainant] what
she thought was going to happen when [the subject] placed her on the
bed.”[571]

In
a summer 2009 case in which the complainant met the suspect at a club and went
home with him where he assaulted her, the detective wrote, “I asked [the complainant]
that since this was the first time meeting [the suspect] and she did walk to
[the suspect]’s house, what her intention was when she got there.”
The detective also noted, “I asked [the complainant] what she was doing
while the defendant was putting on the condom.”[572]

After
a victim reported being assaulted by an acquaintance on a college campus in the
fall of 2008, the suspect walked her out of his room. After being taken by
ambulance to a hospital for a SANE exam, she was interviewed by a detective.
The detective’s notes say, “As the two passed the court yard area,
they passed an emergency post that the complainant did not activate for
help.”[573]

Requiring Detailed Interviews
While the Victim is Traumatized

A lengthy interview immediately
after an assault may not be appropriate because of the possible effects of
trauma on the victim.[574] Victims are frequently traumatized during the
initial interview (particularly if it immediately follows the assault) and
therefore may not be able to concentrate or act rationally. It may have been
hours since the victims last slept and, as mentioned above, they may still be
under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Decades of research show that trauma
decreases a person’s ability to provide information that is complete,
consistent, and wholly accurate, especially in the first hours or days after
the incident.[575]

The MPD’s General Order on
Adult Sexual Assault Investigations, a set of internal police guidelines for
officers related to investigating adult sexual assault cases, states that the
detective shall, “[O]btain a statement of facts from the victim when
time, location and conditions permit” and “schedule a follow-up
interview with the victim at the SAU [Sexual Assault Unit]’s office as
soon as possible, but in all cases within seventy-two (72) hours.”[576]

In practice, however, detectives often take a detailed
statement from the victim before allowing him or her to have a forensic exam.
The rationale for this, according to the MPD, is that they do not want to risk
losing evidence that needs to be collected immediately. Also, some victims may
wish to speak to detectives right away. Though an MPD commander says a decision
about when to take a detailed interview depends on how the victim responds, the
lieutenant responsible for the SAU also said the purpose of a quiet room set
aside for victims at the hospital is to enable detectives to conduct a full
interview there. A follow-up interview is generally only scheduled later if the
victim is physically incapable of talking at the hospital.[577]

One officer explained that detectives “really go into
detail and sometimes they ask questions over and over again.”[578]
According to victims and several veteran victim advocates, the process is drawn
out further if the victim has to repeat his or her story to different
detectives. In some cases, victims are interviewed for several hours before
being allowed to have a forensic exam.[579]

Survivors reported feeling traumatized and ill-prepared to
answer questions at the hospital. Susan, who had not slept for two days,
described feeling in a state of shock during the three-hour interview she
endured before being allowed to get an exam.[580]
Her requests to be re-interviewed later, when her memory was better, were
refused.[581]
Nor was she permitted to review the detective’s notes from the initial
interview to see if they were accurate.[582]
Maya also reported feeling physically ill at the time of her police interview
and being unable to remember events clearly. Despite her protests, detectives
pressed her for a timeline at the hospital but appeared to be uninterested in
the full account of events that she wrote a few days later, having already
decided there was no case.[583]

Victims may also be incapable of being interviewed at the
time they undergo a forensic exam because they are still intoxicated or under
the influence of drugs. However, in its review of investigative files, Human
Rights Watch found that detectives did not necessarily follow up to interview
the victim when they were stable and as a result, some cases appear to slip
through the cracks entirely.

Delaying the exam can be problematic as victims are not
supposed to eat or drink or go to the bathroom before the kit is taken. After
waiting, victims may decide not to have an exam at all.[584]
Several SART meeting minutes from 2009 note the need to shorten the police
interview at the hospital but the change was “still in progress”
and “not yet implemented” or “indefinitely on hold.”[585]

Some instances in which the victim decided against an exam
after a long interview include:

A patient who was interviewed by detectives for a long
time despite requests by hospital staff to attend to her medical needs.
She fled the hospital before nurses were allowed to access her, according
to a 2011 exam exemption report.[586]

A victim who reported being assaulted by three men in Chinatown
in 2010. According to an advocate, police spoke with her for hours at the
hospital before her exam, asking her to repeat the story to different
detectives. During that time she was not able to eat or drink. She finally
decided not to have the exam as she did not want her family, who came to
support her, to have to wait for her any longer.[587]

A woman who
was kidnapped in Fairfax at a metro station on her way to the parking lot and
assaulted. The Metro Police, MPD, and the Virginia Police were all involved
because they were not sure which had jurisdiction. An advocate said that
instead of coordinating their interview with the victim, different detectives
came in and out, repeated questions, and interrupted each other while the
victim waited for an exam at the hospital. She told medical staff the
experience was “overwhelming and confusing.”[588]

One victim in 2011 reported to nurses being questioned for
“many hours – like an inquisition” and decided to delay
her exam until the next day.[589]

In September 2009, nurses reported that a victim refused
to give a history of her assault to the nurses “stating she had
already given the account to 6 other [MPD] police officers.” Despite
complaining of pain in her chest, neck, and throat, she was too upset to
answer questions from nurses and ultimately did not get a forensic exam
that day.[590]

Requiring a victim to tell their
story repeatedly may also lead a victim to decide not to cooperate. Police
notes for a 2011 case not assigned a case number indicate one complainant
“became irritated stating that she had told this story to 5 other people.
The undersigned apologized and stated it was necessary for her to repeat the
story. This is when [complainant] stated her contempt for police.” The
complainant decided not to report.[591]

The effects of trauma on a victim’s ability to present
a coherent account of what happened do not seem to be understood by detectives.
Rather, the inability to give a coherent statement is sometimes used as grounds
for closing a case.

In several cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch, the
detectives emphasized (even immaterial) inconsistencies in the victim’s
immediate statements. Furthermore, as described in the earlier section on
“victim-blaming,” the detective may then “confront” the
victim with inconsistencies, which may result in the victim choosing not to
cooperate with the investigation any further. For example, detective notes
indicate the following:

In
a March 2010 case in which a complainant described being assaulted in a taxi
after leaving a nightclub, detective notes read, “At the time of the
alleged assault the complainant accounts were inconsistence [sic] and all over
the place.” Detectives ultimately requested that the case be unfounded.[592]

One
complainant from June 2010, who had suffered a serious injury, was asked
“on two occasions to … come into the office to be reinterviewed and
confronted on the inconsistencies” but never showed up.[593]

Another
victim interviewed immediately after her assault in January 2009, was described
as “very evasive and inconsistent” and ultimately was taped giving
a statement that she did not want to go through with an investigation after
initially having called the police.[594]

A 2011 case
in which the arrest warrant was declined because the complainant, who had been
seriously injured during the assault, “became uncooperative after being
confronted with misleading statements that she made during her initial
disclosure.”[595]

Detective
notes in the case of a woman assaulted in a hotel in May 2011 read,
“review of the evidence in the case revealed that there [were] several
inconsistencies to the complainant’s report. C initially reported that
she was writing when the suspect grabbed her but told the detective she was
leaning on a bench.”[596]

An additional problem with
conducting a detailed interview immediately is that detectives do not have time
to review other information about the case before speaking to the victim and so
lack a full picture of what occurred, which may in turn compromise the
investigation.[597]

After receiving Human Rights
Watch’s recommendation to allow victims at least one full sleep cycle
prior to conducting a full interview, the MPD issued a memorandum in June 2012,
affording victims 24 hours after a preliminary interview before being
re-interviewed, except in urgent cases or when a delay would jeopardize the
victim or other members of the public.[598] However, as of October 2012, a source at WHC told Human
Rights Watch that they had not yet observed any change in the MPD’s
interviewing practices.[599]

Police Unresponsiveness

Numerous people who have worked
closely with victims for years said victims regularly complain that they do not
hear back from the MPD despite calling the department or individual officers
repeatedly.[600] This is true even when the victim has concerns for his
or her safety.

According to victim advocates, this lack of responsiveness
reinforces victims’ perception that their cases are not taken seriously
and is often upsetting to them.[601]
One advocate said that victims often tell her, “They won’t return
calls. I know they don’t believe me.”[602]
A person who works with survivors described the failure to respond as a
“systematic way to shut down survivors so they won’t pursue cases.
If it is not the intent, it is certainly the effect as at a certain point they
want to move on.”[603]

This sentiment is reflected in one victim’s
experience, which she described in a written complaint in November 2009 filed
with the Office of Police Complaints:

Shortly after making the report I received threatening
emails from one of the parties involved. I phoned the detective and left
multiple messages regarding the emails. She never returned my phone call …
In the past week I have left multiple messages for both Detective [] and her
supervisor Detective Sgt. ---. I have heard nothing from the Metropolitan
Police Department since filing the report, 3 months ago, despite countless
phone calls.... If I did not know better I would think that they were persuaded
not to pursue the case that I definitely want to pursue.[604]

Susan D. also reported that her calls to a detective went
unanswered after she got in contact following threats from an investigator
hired by her assailant. After contacting the detective’s superior, the
detective finally returned the call.[605]
Shelly D., who reported an assault in October 2009, said getting the police to
respond was “like pulling teeth” even after her assailant sent her
several threatening messages. Her detective “did not even bat an
eye.”[606]
She ended up moving in order to avoid her assailant. Other victims reported not
hearing from the police again after their initial report was written, and not
having calls returned.[607]
One victim, who was not updated about her case, reported being “afraid to
leave her house”, worried that the assailant might find her.[608]

Even people who work on these issues professionally describe
how difficult it can be to get detectives to return calls about their
clients’ cases. As the head of a community organization put it,
“The amount of self-advocacy you have to do to get cases followed up on
is insane.”[609]
Another advocate said she has to draw on political connections to get police to
respond.[610] And a
third community advocate who has worked with victims said that survivors are
often left in the dark and regularly ask her to follow up with police. A
detective told her the police do not follow up with victims as a rule because
they “don’t want to taint the case” or risk a subpoena.[611]
Medical staff report calls from patients months after their exams wondering
what happened to their case.

Lack of information about the
status of their case is hard for victims, many of whom have put their lives on
hold.[612] Students may wait for news from police about
whether their case is moving forward before deciding whether to report to the
university, yet may not know for six months that the case has been closed. The
protracted process may also give victims a sense of false hope, making it even
harder for them to comprehend a decision not to prosecute.[613]

After receiving Human Rights
Watch’s recommendations, the MPD, in June 2012, issued a memorandum
requiring detectives to provide the complainant with the case number, their
contact information, and work hours. “The detective shall ensure that
proper follow up is conducted with the complainant” and will respond to calls
from a complainant “within (2) business days.”[614]

Other Insensitive Behavior

The attitude conveyed by law
enforcement during the victim interview can be “the single most important
factor in determining the success of the victim interview—and therefore
the entire investigation,” according to a manual for investigating sexual
assaults.[615]

An MPD Special Order states, “Members who investigate
sexual assault complaints shall be sensitive and compassionate to the needs of
the victim and have compassion, while providing information and assistance
though this traumatic situation.”[616]

Unfortunately, apart from behavior described above, Human
Rights Watch uncovered a range of insensitive behavior and remarks from some MPD
detectives charged with investigating sexual assault, indicating that policy is
not strictly followed.

In a number of instances, detectives spoke or behaved in
ways that demeaned or upset the sexual assault victims, increasing the
likelihood that patients would not report their assaults. A person who works
closely with survivors said they often ask, “Will I have to deal with him
or her again?”— referring to Sexual Assault Unit detectives.[617]

Internal police notes indicate
that police ask victims about their physiological response to their assaults
during their initial interview.[618] Victims told Human Rights Watch that when they
admitted to detectives that their bodies had involuntarily responded to the
assaults (experienced symptoms of arousal), they felt the detectives lost
interest in their cases. Victims described feeling betrayed by their bodies and
struggling to cope with their biological responses.[619]

If the case is going to trial
(which is often not the case, and was not the case in any of the files reviewed
in which this information appeared), information about physical arousal may be
relevant. However, an involuntary orgasm does not indicate consent and according
to at least one expert, that kind of question is not appropriate in the initial
interview and is needlessly upsetting to victims.[620] Nor do prosecutors see a physical response as a
barrier to successful prosecution.[621]

Examples of inappropriate behavior or attitudes by MPD
detectives include:

The
response of the detective who interviewed Estella C., a 24-year-old student, who
was assaulted orally and vaginally by an acquaintance in his truck in the
spring of 2010. Estella drove herself to the police department to report the
crime after the assault. According to Estella, the detective who interviewed her
repeatedly asked whether the assailant was good at oral sex. Estella said the
detective rolled her eyes while she explained what happened, made comments like
“So you were into it,” and repeatedly said the incident did not
sound like rape to her.[622]The detective also said that
even though it “didn’t sound like a good case,” she was “still
going to have to type it up.”[623] Estella said she eventually
drove herself to the hospital for a forensic exam because she did not want to
spend more time with the detective, who acted like taking her case would be
inconvenient.[624]

For
people with a psychiatric history, witnesses have heard police raise their
voices and ask, “what do you want me to do with this?”, giving
patients a hard time and implying the case is not worth pursuing.[625]

A
fall 2011 case in which the complainant reports that after meeting the suspect
at a nightclub, he lost consciousness but awoke briefly to find the suspect
anally penetrating him before losing consciousness again. Beneath information
about the complainant, the detective noted, “Homosexual male who hangs
out in gay bars.”[626]

The
detective who interviewed Susan D. made several references to her own personal
history during the interview. When Susan said she was uncomfortable when her
assailant made references to her “tight white pussy,” the detective
said, “Honey, that’s not anything. I am half-white and my husband
says that kind of thing to me all the time.”[627]The detective also
disclosed she had been raped twice. Susan, at one point feeling frustrated that
the detective did not understand how fearful she was, said, “I wish he
[the assailant] had a gun so you would understand.” The detective
responded, “No you don’t. That happened to me.” When Susan told
the detective about being touched, the detective repeatedly interrupted and
said, “That is not a crime.”[628]

One
victim, a doctor, who reported being sexually assaulted in the spring of 2011, told
hospital personnel the police were “unbelievably rude and
argumentative” and wondered, if they treated her, a doctor, this way,
“how do they treat less fortunate patients?”[629]

In
the case of Rosa S., who was abducted by two men wearing masks and raped
repeatedly overnight before being released the next morning, the detective who
interviewed her was aggressive and asked, “You are only doing this to get
immigration status, aren’t you?”[630]

During
Maya T.’s initial interview with detectives in April 2011, the female
detective asked her if she had gastric bypass surgery and said, “I can
tell you still have all that fat under your arms.” She asked Maya to speak
Spanish since her assailants were Spanish-speaking and then told her to “Stop
butchering my language” and to “Shut up.” The detective also
told Maya, “You know you aren’t allowed back there, right?”
implying that Maya wanted to return to the place of her assault, another
comment Maya found insulting.[631]

The impact police insensitivity can have on victims is illustrated
by the description of one patient’s reaction to being questioned by a
detective. According to a 2009 email that medical staff sent to the Office of
Victims Services,

[The detective] had been in the room with the patient for
about 30-40 minutes when we heard screams and very loud crying coming from the
room through the closed doors. Mind you, the patient had been calm, cooperative
and tear-free before [the detective] went in the room. The advocate and I
knoced [sic] on the door. I opened it and asked if everything was OK. [The
detective] said ‘yes, we would have come out if it wasn’t.
We’re all police here, you can leave.’ In a curt and hostile tone.
I reminded her that we would need to start the forensic exam soon and she
replied ‘you’ll start when I’m finished. You can leave
now.’

When I made it back to the room, the patient was crying
inconsolably.[632]

Victims too describe trauma resulting from their
experiences with the MPD. Sixteen months after her assault, Estella C. could
still not discuss her experience trying to get the MPD to respond to her sexual
assault without crying.[633]
Shelly G. said her experience reporting her assault to the MPD in October 2009
was “really traumatizing. They made me feel like it was my fault or like
it was in my mind. It was an awful feeling. It took me years to get back on my
feet and get back to being the person I was before the assault.”[634]

In contrast, if victims are treated in a supportive and
positive manner, the experience can help facilitate recovery. A former rape
victim advocate contrasted her experience in D.C., where she felt victims were
treated dismissively and cases were almost “always dead in the water,”
to her experience as an advocate in another city:

Before starting the interview, the detective explained that
he had to ask difficult questions but that he was not blaming her [the victim].
Rather he was trying to find the suspect. It was a huge thing for her to be
validated by the officer. Even if the case doesn’t move forward, it was
still helpful for her recovery.[635]

Since October 2006, according to a February 2012 letter from
the MPD to the City Council, only one officer has been disciplined for inappropriate
treatment of a sexual assault victim: a detective was suspended in November
2009 for 15 days after inappropriately contacting a sexual assault victim on
Facebook.[636]

However, Chief Lanier indicated in a telephone interview
that four detectives and a supervisor were transferred from the SAU in 2008, partially
in response to the lawsuit by the student who had not been able to get a rape
kit or have her case investigated by police.[637]
Also, in the spring, a lieutenant opened an investigation into a complaint from
Susan D. about her treatment by detectives in April 2011, and in October the MPD
informed her they were reopening her case.

The MPD claims it is aware of only
12 citizen complaints against an SAU member since 2008, only one of which has been
sustained, and has no record of other complaints by hospital staff or
advocates.[638] However, some of the complaints (such as failure to
investigate or dismissive behavior) fall outside of the definition of police
misconduct reviewed by the Office of Police Complaints and would not be
sustained by them, but referred to the MPD to handle internally. Also, many of
the concerns raised in this report have been brought up informally with the MPD
by various stakeholders during the time this report was researched, yet the MPD
has often not addressed those concerns.

Referrals to Community
Resources

MPD’s Standard Operating Procedures recognize that,

Taking the time to address the victim’s needs will
ultimately lead to a more successful involvement of the victim in the criminal
justice process.[639]

Furthermore, a General Order states,

The policy of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) [on
sexual abuse cases is] … to provide information and assistance throughout
this traumatic event.[640]

However, police do not seem to make sufficient efforts to
refer sexual assault victims to community services or address their needs.
Although a victim specialist is assigned to the SAU within the police
department, she appears from police orders and interviews with victims and community
workers to have a very limited role.[641]

Not one advocate for sexual assault victims interviewed knew
of any victim who had been independently referred by the police to the rape
crisis center (apart from calls or referrals made by the hospital call center
as part of standard procedure).[642]

When questioned in 2008, police officers said that it was
not practice then for uniformed officers responding to sexual assault cases to
provide complainants with information about resources available in the community
for sexual assault victims.[643]
In 2012, an MPD sergeant told Human Rights Watch that detectives now pass on referral
information orally.[644]
One victim did say that detectives suggested she contact the Deaf Abused
Women’s Network after her assault.[645]

Some written material with information for survivors is
available at police headquarters. However, in response to our records request
for public outreach materials on sexual assault, the MPD only provided four, apparently
very dated documents. All four referred victims to Howard University Hospital, which
has not been staffed to provide forensic exams since 2008.[646]
One document included advice like “using a whistle” if attacked.

During a Human Rights Watch visit to the MPD on May 30, 2012,
Victim Services provided us with three additional one-page pamphlets about
crime victims’ compensation, the role of Victim Services, and a program
(VINE) that informs victims of a change in an offender’s custody status.

Nor is it clear that other forms of support described in police
policies are actually made available to victims. According to a police
department General Order, a victim specialist assigned to the SAU must ensure
that the victim receives an assistance package containing an application to receive
compensation for crime-related expenses, and the victim specialist should be “available
for any additional questions from the victim.”[647]

However, only one victim interviewed—Susan D.—had
spoken to the victim specialist, whom she had only found by searching the MPD
website and calling directly, rather than contacting her via a police referral.
Advocates who work with survivors said they had not met the MPD victim
specialist or heard of her from survivors.[648]
Victim service providers also report not knowing or being able to reach the
victim advocate at the MPD.[649]

According to the program manager for Victim Services, the
unit contacts victims as soon as it receives a PD-251. The unit has 10
specialists, most of whom have master’s degrees in counseling, who are
able to inform victims of their rights, help with victim compensation, refer
them to resources, and help them through the investigative process before handing
them off to the US Attorney’s Office victims unit for support after the
investigation. One or two of the staff members primarily deal with sexual
assault victims, though others are available to assist if necessary.[650]

The victims we spoke with may not have been referred to the
unit because their cases were not classified as sexual assaults but rather as allegations
or office information. However, the MPD says the SAU has now “expanded
its involvement of its Sexual Assault Victim Services Representative to include
contacting and following up with victims where the victim’s initial
report did not indicate all the elements of a sexual assault.”[651]

Following Human Rights
Watch’s recommendations, a memorandum was issued on June 12, 2012, that
requires all sexual allegation and sexual abuse cases to be referred to the “CID
Victim Services Unit” who will contact the complainant within 72 hours of
the report.[652] The Victim Services Branch program manager
confirmed that their caseload has increased substantially since June and that
she was given approval to hire two more staff members to assist with this work.[653]

Training

The poor police response to victims may be partly due to
lack of training, which has repercussions both for victims and the progress of
investigations.

Hospital staff indicated that officers’ lack of
understanding of medical reports means they are unable to recognize injuries
that are helpful in corroborating an assault.[654]
A counselor and others who work with victims expressed concern that detectives’
expectations of victims immediately after the assault may be unrealistic
because they do not understand the effects of trauma, leading officers to
wrongly think victims are untruthful.[655]

Deposition testimony, witness
interviews, and the response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for
all MPD training material reveal little formal training for responding officers
or detectives on handling sexual assault cases. In his 2008 deposition, a
sergeant could recall only three or four trainings on sexual assault within the
MPD during the previous two decades.[656] Indeed, two sources indicate that SAU detectives
would like more training.[657]

Members of the SAU do not receive any specialized formal training
in handling sexual assault cases before being assigned to the unit. In
interviews with an SAU sergeant, lieutenant, and the commander responsible for
criminal investigations, they said that detectives are not required to attend
any training other than the basic investigator course prior to becoming a
member of the unit. No specific class on investigating sexual assault is
required for either detectives or supervisors in the unit.[658]

Nor are SAU detectives required to undergo any training
regarding sexual assault medical forensic examinations, or drug- facilitated
sexual assaults, or interacting with sexual assault victims.[659]
According to the MPD, in June 2010, SAU detectives attended a training at the
US Attorney’s Office conducted by an expert in drug-facilitated sexual
assaults.[660]
Generally, though, any guidance given to detectives is “on the job,”
according to members of the MPD.[661]
This involves new detectives pairing with veteran counterparts for three to
four weeks of training before taking cases on their own.[662]
In a letter to Human Rights Watch, this was described as a “mentoring
program.” After the first month, the “mentor detective remains
available for questions and advice to the new detective, and also remains
available for case discussion.”[663]

Although Standard Operating Procedures are provided to SAU members,
it is not clear the extent to which detectives in the unit consult them.[664]
In any event, the Standard Operating Procedure manual, as provided to Human
Rights Watch, is itself deficient. For example, it contains no information on
drug-facilitated sexual assaults and does not discuss non-stranger sexual
assault—even though most assaults are committed by someone whom the victim
knows.[665]
Nor is there mention of possible effects of trauma.

According to a February 24, 2012
letter from Chief Cathy Lanier to Council Member Phil Mendelson sent ahead of a
performance oversight hearing, recruits received 28 weeks of academy training,
and 12 to 16 weeks of on-the-job training with an experienced field training officer.[666] However, little of that time appears to be devoted
to training on sexual assault.[667]

In response to a request for all training materials for
officers or detectives pertaining to sexual assault since January 1, 2008,
Human Rights Watch received notes from a course entitled “Recruit Officer
Training Program,” dated May 2011. The lesson plan for the 40-hour
course, entitled “DC CODE Crimes against Persons,” includes a brief
section on the definition of sexual abuse but does not go through the elements
of the crimes.

Since sexual assaults are investigated by the SAU, the
materials say, “it is not necessary for patrol officers to understand the
exact elements of each of the four degrees of sexual abuse.”[668]
Although examples are provided to generally familiarize recruits with the
contents of the sex abuse statute, there is no instruction on interviewing
victims other than a directive to officers to “remain professional”
and “use proper terminology.”[669]

Human Rights Watch also received “instructor notes”
for a 28-hour lesson plan for recruit officers on preliminary investigations,
dated October 1999, that does not include information about sexual assault, but
does say, “Should an investigation prove that a false report was made
investigating officer shall consider charging the person making the report with
‘False Report.’”[670]

The final training document provided, “DC Code part
1,” defines crimes in the D.C. Code, including sexual abuse, and does
include the definitions of the degrees of sexual abuse, including drug-facilitated
sexual assault. [671]

Patrol officers confirmed in deposition testimony that in
2008, they did not receive any training on sexual assault or the MPD policies related
to investigating sexual assaults before or during their MPD work.[672]
Patrol officers did not receive training on drug-facilitated sexual assault,[673]
nor were they familiarized with the purpose of a sexual assault forensic
medical examination or what it entails.[674]
Patrol officers will only receive sexual assault investigation training if it
is included in annual “in-service” trainings, which it rarely is.[675]
Indeed, an experienced patrol officer said he had not received in-service
training on handling sexual assault cases in 10 years.[676]

In contrast, all officers receive significant training on
intra-family offenses. According to a 2003 General Order, “Prior to
permanent appointment, newly hired sworn members shall receive a minimum of
twenty (20) hours of basic training in responding to intrafamily offenses.
Sworn members shall receive a minimum of eight (8) hours of in-service training
designed to familiarize them with the dynamics of intrafamily offenses.”[677]

Although police are required to undergo 40 hours of
“in-service” training each year and receive a brief training as
part of roll call, the MPD does not often avail itself of these opportunities
to train its members on the realistic dynamics of and appropriate handling of
sexual assault cases.[678]
Community groups report that police refuse to accept their offers to train
officers or detectives on sexual assault or trauma.[679]

Although the D.C. Rape Crisis Center used to train police, as
of May 2012, it had not conducted a training with the MPD in five years.[680]
According to a SART team participant, the SAU has refused offers to bring in
other sexual assault investigation experts to train detectives or officers
without charge. It also long refused to participate in SANE training.[681]

Three MPD detectives and a sergeant attended an
international conference on sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking in
San Diego in April 2012.[682]
The MPD SAU lieutenant reported that an experienced detective conducted a
one-hour in-service training for all SAU detectives on “interviewing
victims and witnesses” in late 2011 and a proposal has been made to have
an outside expert come in and train detectives more extensively in the fall of
2012 and possibly again in 2013.[683]
However, the MPD was unable to schedule training with the expert in 2012.

After the findings of this report were sent to the MPD on
May 30, 2012, some detectives registered for free on-line training with End
Violence Against Women International. The MPD’s Victim Services Branch
also contacted Legal Momentum with regard to an on-line training course for
officers on intimate partner sexual violence in October 2012.[684]
In December 2012, the MPD indicated that the Network for Victim Recovery of D.C.
has provided training to all members of the SAU “on the impact of trauma
and the proper approach to victims of sexual assault.” The MPD also
states it “developed online Sexual Abuse training which was mandated for
all sworn members of the force.”[685]

The prosecutors interviewed for this report supported
training detectives in the handling of sexual assault cases. One described
annual training of detectives in human trafficking (a specialized group within
the major narcotics division) that has taken place since 2004 as an example of
successful implementation of regular training that could happen for SAU
detectives.[686]
Training in victimization of sex workers by pimps is also included at roll call
training for all officers.[687]
Training on trauma and cultural sensitivity for survivors in particular groups,
including immigrants and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
community, would also be an important component of any training program that is
implemented.[688]

Nonetheless, as important as training is, training alone,
without accountability, transparency, and proper supervision, will not lead to
necessary changes.

V. Improving Sexual Assault Investigations

Leadership, management, accountability, transparency and
community engagement are the necessary components of systemic change and we saw
the impact in Philadelphia.

To better understand what reforms might be possible in
Washington, D.C., Human Rights Watch reviewed a range of policies and
interviewed numerous experts and stakeholders about reforms undertaken in
Austin, Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Grand Rapids—cities that have
re-examined their approach to sexual assault cases in recent years.[689]

While no single unit does
everything perfectly, we have identified basic elements that often characterize
effective police responses to sexual assault. Many of these can be contrasted
with the approach Human Rights Watch uncovered amongst some officers at MPD.

A lengthier report on approaches to improving sexual assault
investigations can be obtained here: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/improvingSAInvest_0.pdf;
however the following chapter provides a snapshot of our findings, which have
informed our conclusions and recommendations regarding MPD’s response to
sexual assaults in the capital.

A Non-Judgmental, Victim-Centered Approach

In cities that have instituted reforms, there has been a
strong focus on encouraging victims to report their crimes. The captain of the
Philadelphia Special Victims Unit stressed that reporting numbers for rape and
sexual assault remain low and getting people to report is something they are
“battling every day.”[690]

Police departments use various methods to encourage reports,
ranging from protocols allowing people to provide information to police about sexual
assault without recording identifying information (“blind
reporting”) to public awareness campaigns.

In Austin, Texas, victims are permitted to use a pseudonym
on all medical and legal documents associated with the case because “it
gives the victim a choice about whether she wants people to know she is a
survivor.”[691]
In Grand Rapids, in early 2011, the police department implemented a blind reporting
policy allowing victims to report anonymously either indirectly (by filling out
a form and writing his or her own statement and sending it to the Grand Rapids
Police Department) or directly (if the victim meets with the detective to
explain what happened but does not share identifying information.)[692]
Sergeant Rogers of the Grand Rapids Police Department explained that the
advantage of this is that the police are made aware of a suspect’s
characteristics or name so if another related case arises, they may be able to
persuade the anonymous victim to come forward.[693]
In addition, it gives victims more control by providing those who are unsure
about whether to report an option between reporting and not reporting.[694]

Kansas City and Austin both participate in the “Start
by Believing” public outreach campaign, which aims to improve the
response of friends, family members, professionals, and other support people to
a victim’s first disclosure of sexual assault to help victims get the
support they need and encourage reporting.

Encouraging reporting has little impact without efforts to
improve police responsiveness. Unfortunately, throughout the US, many police
remain highly skeptical of victims. A survey as recent as 2010 showed that over
half of detectives with less than 7 years of experience, interviewed in 16
police departments believed that 40 to 80 percent of sexual assault complaints
were false.[695]
Another survey of 891 officers in two southeastern states showed 53 percent of
respondents believed 10 to 50 percent of victims lied about being raped and
another 10 percent thought 51-100 percent of women gave false reports of rape.[696]
In fact, studies show only 2-10 percent of rape cases are false.[697]
Overcoming skepticism is essential to improving police response.

The attitude conveyed by law enforcement can be “the
single most important factor in determining the success of the victim interview—and
therefore the entire investigation,” according to a manual about
investigating sexual assaults.[698]
A Model Policy published by the International Association of Chiefs of Police
(IACP) stresses the importance of officers’ and investigators’
(detectives’) attitudes towards victims in ensuring the latters’
cooperation and ability to cope with the emotional effects of the crime.[699]

Detectives should be trained to
reassure the victim that they are not there to judge, and that nothing the
victim did gave the suspect permission to sexually assault them.[700] As one Kansas City detective remarked to Human
Rights Watch, “They need to understand that we get it.”[701]

Detectives can explain to victims
the importance of not withholding any information so that their credibility is
not questioned later. In Austin, Grand Rapids, and Kansas City, the detective
or advocate makes a point of explaining to the victim that people often leave
things out and it is better to know everything—even unflattering or
illegal behavior—upfront, while also reassuring the victim that he or she
is not at fault and will not be judged.[702]

Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Austin all have policies not
to charge the victim with illegal behavior that happened around the assault
(unless it is absolutely necessary given the seriousness of the offense), and
make it clear that the victim will not be arrested for offenses like illicit
drug use or underage drinking.[703]
Experts strenuously object to threatening victims implicitly or explicitly with
charges for false reporting.[704]
In Austin, the head of the Sex Crimes Unit eliminated a requirement that
victims sign a perjury statement before beginning an interview because it
conveyed suspicion toward victims that was likely to make them feel
uncomfortable and less willing to participate.[705]

Interviews

Due to the possible impact of trauma and a victim’s
possible reactions, the first responding officer (generally a patrol or
uniformed officer) should limit the amount of information gathered from a
victim immediately after the assault.[706]

He or she should address any
safety or medical concerns, collect just enough information to establish the elements
of the crime, identify potential witnesses and suspect(s), and identify and
secure evidence.[707] In Austin, responding officers gather basic facts
and determine whether a detective should respond to the scene, for example if
there is a perpetrator that needs to be arrested immediately.[708] A detective conducts a detailed interview later.

The possible impact of trauma on
short-term memory means it is preferable to give the victim one or even two
sleep cycles before conducting a detailed interview.[709] Not rushing an interview may be advisable for other
reasons too: a victim may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the
time of the initial report; he or she may need a chance to rest, change clothes,
or bathe after a forensic exam. He or she may also require some time to process
what has happened and make arrangements for child-care or transportation.[710] It also gives detectives an opportunity to evaluate
all of the reports generated as a result of the call before questioning the
victim.[711]

Beginning an interview by
acknowledging the victim’s trauma is often helpful. The guiding principle
for detectives in Philadelphia, according to the former head of the Special
Victims Unit, is, “How do you want someone in your family to be
treated?”[712] In Kansas City, police start the interview by
saying, “We are really glad you are here because you are safe,” or
“Thank you for being here.”[713] In San Diego, detectives are instructed to validate
and normalize a victim’s responses by understanding and explaining Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder and the impact trauma has on victims.

Victims should be informed about the progress of their case,
the detective should return phone calls in a timely manner, and any decision
not to arrest the suspect or further pursue the case should be carefully
explained to the victim.[714]

Advocates and Referrals to Community Resources

Using an advocate or counselor to
assist victims through the investigative process can be beneficial to both
victims and law enforcement.[715]

For example, use of rape crisis
center advocates from the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault
(MOCSA) is a key component of Kansas City’s victim-centered response to
sexual assault. Advocates are called to the hospital when a victim is brought
in for a forensic exam, and they are present for the victim during the police
interview. The Sex Crimes Section leadership welcomes their involvement because
they find victims more likely to report an assault and remain engaged in the
investigation if they have an advocate. One detective described a situation in
which a victim experienced a flashback during an interview and was only able to
finish her statement with the advocate’s support.[716] Kansas City Sexual Assault Response Team (SART)
members caution that the role of the advocate has to be clearly explained: they
are there for support and are not part of the police investigation. As a
prosecutor put it, “As long as people know what is expected, it
works.”[717] In Austin, victim service counselors are integrated
into the Sex Crimes Unit and provide support to the victim at every stage of
the process, acting as an intermediary between detectives and victims.[718]

Cities with constructive practices
for victims inform them verbally and in writing of their rights and of
community resources available to them.[719] For example, the Victim Services Unit in Austin
gives each victim a detailed packet of resources[720] and refers victims to the rape crisis center.[721] Kansas City detectives send victims who miss an
appointment a follow-up letter containing information about counseling services
and detectives also regularly refer victims to the rape crisis center.[722] In Grand Rapids, all officers are required to
provide victims with a “2-1-1” card, which is a pocket guide to
programs and services in the area, including support services for sexual
assault victims. In addition, the detectives in the family service team have a
wide array of pamphlets (in English and Spanish) on site that they are able to
provide victims when they are interviewed.[723] In Philadelphia, police and hospital personnel
routinely refer victims to the rape crisis center.[724]

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

In four cities that Human Rights Watch visited—Philadelphia,
Austin, Grand Rapids, and Kansas City— collaboration between police and
the various agencies and community groups that work with sexual assault
survivors was viewed as an essential component of success. As Sergeant Rogers
of Grand Rapids said, “We couldn’t survive without a good working
relationship with them.”[725]
This collaboration often takes the form of a formal Sexual Assault Response and
Resource Team (SART or SARRT), which may include forensic examiners,
detectives, advocates, and prosecutors.[726]
Philadelphia’s Sexual Assault Advisory Committee, which has operated for
over 20 years, is less formal and open to anyone who wants to participate.

In each city, medical staff, advocates, and police
recognized that the victim’s wellbeing is important to everyone.[727]
Collaboration across disciplines yields a number of benefits. Communication
between law enforcement and medical personnel can assist the investigation by
helping the nurse document and collect evidence. In Philadelphia and Grand
Rapids, one noted benefit of improved communication is that nurses share
relevant information with detectives that the victim may not have mentioned,
such as the possible location of a condom.[728]
The detectives in Kansas City also call nurses to decipher technical medical
reports.[729]
In each city, team members noted that their relationships and mutual respect
allow them to raise concerns informally about insensitive or inappropriate
behavior and feel confident they will be addressed.[730]

Leadership and Training

Leaders within the sexual assault
unit and in the upper reaches of the police department hierarchy who are committed
to thorough investigation of sexual assault crimes are essential to success. As
one retired police chief told Human Rights Watch, “Culture has to
change from the top. Clear messages need to be sent about how these cases are
handled.”[731]

In Austin, Kansas City, and
Philadelphia, community advocates and medical personnel frequently credited the
commitment of the head of the sex crimes unit as the reason for improved
treatment of victims. These captains and sergeants in turn felt they had
support they needed from top management to do what was necessary to handle
these cases appropriately.

The captain in Kansas City and his counterparts in
Philadelphia and Austin worked hard to change the culture of their departments
and reinforce a victim-centered approach.

In Philadelphia, drastic changes to the Special Victims Unit
in the late 1990s came only when police leadership made reform a priority after
recognizing there was a problem and being embarrassed due to media attention. A
Philadelphia advocate credited Commissioner Timoney for the changes there,
stating, “it was the leadership of Commissioner Timoney that transformed
sex crime investigations. Commissioner Timoney reorganized the department and
put in appropriate management and accountability measures.”[732]
A veteran prosecutor summed it up: “Attitude is top down.”[733]
The current head of the city’s Special Victims Unit stressed the
importance of reminding “people of how things can deteriorate if you take
your mind off it.”[734]
Information about sex crimes cases is raised during roll call (when officers
present themselves for inspection and a briefing before leaving on assignment)
and information bulletins about cases are regularly sent out. Daily conference
calls also reference sex crimes.[735]

Moreover, effective departments
have instituted specialized training in sexual assault. In Austin, San Diego,
Kansas City, Philadelphia, and New York City, police receive detailed training
on investigating sexual assault. In New Orleans, after realizing that
detectives’ lack of understanding of how sexual assault victims think led
to misclassification of cases, police leadership asked advocates and experts at
Tulane University to design a training program to teach detectives how to
better relate to sexual assault victims. Detectives undergo training quarterly
and all patrol officers will do a smaller version of the training program.[736]

The need for training is constant because of high turnover,[737]
and specialized training is necessary because police training on investigating
other crimes can be counterproductive if applied to sexual assault survivors.
Police are often trained in interrogating witnesses and suspects rather than in
interviewing victims. Furthermore, police are often suspicious when information
is presented in a disorganized or inconsistent manner, or when victims recall
information days, weeks, or even months after the assault.[738]

One study showed that if victims do not tell the whole story
up front, cases are less likely to progress.[739]
Training in the effects of trauma on memory can help officers understand this
is not a cause for suspicion and that inconsistencies should not be confused
with a false report.[740]
Police also need enough training in the dynamics of sexual violence to
understand counterintuitive behavior, such as a victim returning to a party
after an assault or “freezing” and not fighting back.[741]

Experts also recommend training
officers in the elements of sexual assault offenses so they can better identify
incidents that meet the criteria, even if they lack the element of force or
fear. In many places, including the District of Columbia, it is unlawful to
engage in sexual activity with someone who is extremely intoxicated,
incapacitated, severely disabled, unconscious, or otherwise physically helpless,
even if the intoxicating substance was not administered covertly by the
suspect.[742] Yet responding officers may not realize the
victim’s intoxication may mean that force is not necessary to establish
sexual abuse.[743]

Officers should also be aware that specific recollection of
penetration is not necessary to report a sexual assault. According to the FBI
spokesperson:

There is in fact no requirement that a victim specifically
recall the act of penetration—especially in cases where a woman might
have blacked out. If a woman says she has reason to believe she was raped but
cannot recall details because she was under the influence of alcohol or drugs,
the incident should be counted as a rape. If subsequent investigation proves
that no rape took place, police can subtract it from their crime total.[744]

Accountability and Transparency

In Austin, Philadelphia, Grand Rapids, and Kansas City, a
number of safeguards have been put in place to ensure that sexual assault cases
are investigated. Each department has incorporated most, if not all, of the
following practices:

Requiring that all sexual assault incidents be put in
writing and assigned a number for tracking purposes and secondary review;

Reviewing call logs to ensure cases are not slipping
through the cracks;

Checking each case to see that the investigation is
handled appropriately;

Reviewing
caseloads to monitor the reporting, clearing, and closing of all cases by each
detective to identify potential problems;

Serious and prompt responses to complaints about improper
treatment by victims;[745]

Removal of detectives who do not meet the expectations of
the unit.[746]

Experts agree that detectives should not be granted the
discretion to declare a case unfounded or not to write a report after taking
only an initial statement from the victim. All incidents (including those where
it is unclear if the legal elements of a sexual assault are met) should be
documented, reviewed by a supervisor, and followed up.[747]
For example, in Kansas City, every sexual assault case must be written up and
investigated. The policy has paid off. The captain, recalling one sexual
assault case in which detectives doubted that a crime had occurred, said,

The perpetrator snuck into the victim’s house and
approached her from behind. He told her not to look at him and made her take a
bath afterwards. The victim never saw the suspect. Despite their doubts,
detectives investigated the case and a month later a similar crime occurred.
Eventually they were able to link the perpetrator to four cold cases in
addition to five cases in 2009 and 2010.[748]

A written record is necessary so that officers and
detectives can be held responsible for every sexual assault call they receive.
Finally, detectives should not be pressured to “clear” (or remove
from an active investigative caseload) a high percentage of their cases.[749]

In cities such as Philadelphia[750]
and Austin,[751]
stringent oversight of the progress of cases and external reviews by advocacy
organizations of case files have brought increased accountability and improved police
response.

In Philadelphia, to restore public confidence in the police
following revelations about its mishandling of sexual assault cases in 1999,
Commissioner John Timoney proposed what seemed to be a radical idea at the
time: allowing advocacy groups to review investigative files of sex crimes
cases. The review process is conducted once a year. Representatives from five
advocacy groups (bound by confidentiality agreements) meet in a sex crimes unit
conference room for a few days each year and review all “unfounded”
cases as well as 100 randomly selected case files, child abuse cases referred
to the department by third parties, and a category of cases established for
situations where the victim does not recall what happened.[752]
The reviewers examine files to determine if all relevant witnesses were
interviewed; all indicated forensic testing was requested and results returned;
victim interviews were conducted appropriately and without blame or
interrogation techniques; coding is correct; no victim polygraph tests were
threatened or performed; and that the ultimate determination as to whether a
crime was committed is consistent with the evidence collected.[753]
They also scrutinize victim recantations to ensure they were not influenced by
police or others.

The result has been better investigations and improved
treatment of victims. The head of the Philadelphia Special Victims Unit said
his investigators adhere to a higher threshold because they know their files
will be reviewed: “Our investigators are well aware that they may be
asked tough questions about their assigned cases at some point down the road.
They pay more attention to detail and are more careful through every step of
the investigation. The case review program ultimately makes them better
investigators.”[754]
Over the years, the advocates also describe seeing “a vast improvement in
the files,” which contain more documentation and more sign-off from
supervisors.[755]
Fewer cases are dropped without an investigation.[756]

In Austin, when Sergeant Liz Donegan
took over the Sex Crimes Unit in 2002, she discovered that patrol officers
regularly cleared sexual assault cases without documenting the incident in a
written report. She issued a directive requiring all calls to respond to sexual
assault cases to be documented in a formal report that is forwarded to the Sex
Crimes Unit for review to ensure the cases do not disappear from the system.[757] If a detective wants to close a case as “unfounded,”
he or she must meet personally with his or her supervisor to justify the
decision. As a result, Austin has very few unfounded cases.[758] The New Orleans Police Department also implemented
procedures requiring the commander of the sex crimes section to sign off on the
classifications for all sexual assault cases after finding that large numbers
of sexual assault cases that officers did not think were true were classified
as “miscellaneous.”[759]

Following the Baltimore Sun’s
expose in 2010 that city police led the nation in “unfounding”
cases, Baltimore Commissioner Fred Bealefeld gave the Sexual Assault Response
Team the ability to audit Police Department practices and past cases.[760] He also required the unit commander to sign off on
any unfounded sexual assault case in the city. Patrol officers are no longer
able to make that determination.[761] Other proposed reforms include case-management
software that would allow every agency involved with the response to sexual
assaults to access the status of a sexual assault case.[762] The Baltimore commissioner stressed that in order
to achieve transparency, “you have to give people a lot of access,”
including people who have historically been very critical of the Police
Department and “Agencies need to be ready for every bit of criticism that
this issue brings.”[763] Although there have been changes in policy and
personnel in Baltimore Police Department’s Sex Offense Unit since 2010,
reform is ongoing and it is too early to assess the impact of the changes.

VI. International Human Rights Obligations

The United States is party to a number of international
conventions that recognize rape as a human rights abuse, and require that the
US ensure the protection of its citizens from sexual violence, including rape. Federal,
state, and local governments must uphold these requirements under the US
Constitution.[764]

In 2010, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution
on efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women, stressing that “States ... must exercise due diligence to
prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of violence against
women andgirls and provide protection to women and girls who
have experienced violence, and that failure to do so violates and impairs or
nullifies the enjoyment of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”[765]

The US is party to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and to the
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (Convention against Torture), which both set out important standards
for victims of rape.[766] The ICCPR guarantees the right to security of the
person under article 9, which includes a right to protection of bodily integrity
against third parties.[767] Both the Convention against Torture and the ICCPR
(under article 7) guarantee the right to be free from torture and cruel,
inhuman, or degrading treatment.[768] International tribunals and other bodies have
established that rape is covered by the prohibitions on torture, and that the government
must act to prevent rape and bring to justice those responsible.[769] The US is also a member of the Organization of American States, and
as such is legally bound to protect and prevent violations of the rights
contained in the American Declaration on the Rights and Duty of Man, including
the right to life and security of the person.[770]

Private Actors

This obligation to protect individuals from harm is not
limited to liability for action by or on behalf of governments. General
international law and specific human rights treaties hold that states may be
responsible for private acts if they fail to act with due diligence to prevent
violations of rights or to investigate and punish acts of violence.

The United Nations Human Rights
Committee (HRC) has made it clear that states party to the ICCPR and other
conventions violate their obligation under these treaties not only when state
actors are responsible for the action, but also when the state fails to take
necessary steps to prevent violations caused by private actors. The HRC's
General Recommendation 31 to the ICCPR notes that state parties must "take
appropriate measures or … exercise due diligence to prevent, punish,
investigate or redress the harm caused by such acts by private persons or
entities."[771] The Committee Against Torture requires state
parties to prevent and protect victims from gender-based violence and rape by
exercising due diligence in investigating, prosecuting, and punishing perpetrators—even
private actors—of rape and sexual assault.[772]

The Inter-American Court of Human
Rights has reinforced that responsibility for violations of human rights rests
with the state, as well as with the perpetrators when the state refrains from
taking necessary measures to investigate crimes or prevent future violations:

An illegal act which violates human rights and which is
initially not directly imputable to a state (for example because it is the act
of a private person or because the person responsible has not been identified)
can lead to international responsibility of the State, not because of an act
itself, but because of the lack of due diligence to prevent the violation or to
respond to it as required by the Convention.[773]

Similarly, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, too
has stated,

When the State apparatus leaves human rights violations
unpunished and the victim’s full enjoyment of human rights is not
promptly restored, the State fails to comply with its positive duty under international
human rights law. The same principle applies when a State allows private
persons to act freely and with impunity to the detriment of the rights
recognized in the governing instruments of the inter-American system.[774]

These provisions make clear that the US is bound to take all
necessary possible measures to prevent sexual assault and rape even when
carried out by private actors.

Non-Discrimination

The principle of
non-discrimination, the “backbone of the universal and regional systems
for the protection of human rights,” also creates additional obligations
to take steps to investigate, punish, and prevent rape.[775] Violence against women has been repeatedly
recognized as one of the most extreme and pervasive forms of discrimination,
severely impairing the ability of women to enjoy their rights.[776]

For example, the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a treaty
the US has signed but not ratified, obligates states parties to combat
discrimination against women.[777] The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against women, the treaty body that interprets and monitors compliance with the
CEDAW, has affirmed that gender-based violence is a form of discrimination
against women and that state parties should have effective legal, preventive,
and protective measures in place to provide justice for victims, hold offenders
accountable, and protect society from future acts of sexual violence.[778] As a signatory to the treaty, the US is obliged to,
at a minimum, not act in a way that would undermine the intent and purpose of
the treaty.[779]

International and regional human rights systems have
affirmed “the strong link between discrimination, violence and due
diligence, emphasizing that a State’s failure to act with due diligence
to protect women from violence constitutes a form of discrimination, and denies
women their right to equality before the law.”[780]

The European Commission on Human
Rights has found that failure to protect women against violence breaches their
right to equal protection of the law, even if the failure is unintentional.[781]

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has stated,
“Ensuring that women can freely and fully exercise their human rights is
a priority in the Americas,” since principles of non-discrimination and
equal protection are fundamental to the Inter-American system.[782]
Following this reasoning, the commission has found that the US’s failure
to act with due diligence to protect plaintiffs from domestic violence violated
its obligation not to discriminate and to provide for equal protection under
the law.[783]

As with the duty to protect
individuals from harm, the non-discrimination obligation applies even if the
perpetrator is a private actor.[784] As former UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against
Women Radhika Coomaraswamy stated in her first report on the subject in 1994,

In the context of norms recently established by the
international community, a State that does not act against crimes of violence
against women is as guilty as the perpetrators. States are under a positive
duty to prevent, investigate and punish crimes associated with violence against
women.[785]

Due Diligence

The positive duty to prevent and punish harm to individuals,
including violence against women, requires that states act with due diligence
to investigate acts of violence and hold offenders to account. The due
diligence standard is expressed in a variety of legal instruments and other
sources of international law.[786]

The case law of human rights tribunals has helped clarify
the practical requirements for diligent and thorough investigation of human
rights violations. The European Court of Human Rights has made clear that the
obligation under international law to protect the rights to life and bodily
integrity entails the conduct of an effective official investigation when a
violation occurs, so that the domestic laws that are intended to offer
protection are effectively implemented.

An effective investigation has been defined as one that is
capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible. Authorities
must take reasonable steps available to secure the evidence concerning the
incident, including, inter alia, witness statements and forensic evidence.
There must be effective access for the complainant to the investigation
procedure. Any deficiency in the investigation that undermines its ability to
establish the person or persons responsible will risk running afoul of the
requirement to provide an effective remedy.[787]

In M.C. v. Bulgaria, in 2003, the European Court of
Human Rights held that the state failed to meet its obligations to establish
and apply effectively a criminal-law system punishing rape when it failed to
investigate sufficiently a “date rape” case due to the absence of
traces of violence and resistance. In that case, despite authorities’
questioning of 17 persons (some repeatedly), and consulting experts, the court
found the investigation inadequate because authorities failed to explore the
possibilities for establishing the surrounding circumstances and did not
sufficiently test the credibility of conflicting witness statements.[788]

In Opuz v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights
found local authorities failed to use the required diligence to prevent
domestic violence recurring after terminating proceedings without conducting
any meaningful investigation. The court found the state both failed in its
obligation to prevent inhuman or degrading treatment and violated prohibitions
on discrimination since domestic violence is regarded as gender-based violence,
a recognized form of discrimination against women.[789]

States in the Inter-American system have repeatedly been
held internationally responsible for lack of due diligence in preventing human
rights violations or investigating or sanctioning perpetrators.[790]
The Inter-American system too has made clear that it is not the formal
existence of remedies that demonstrates due diligence, but rather that they are
made available and effective. An investigation of alleged violations alone is
not enough to clear the state of liability. Due diligence requires an effective
search for truth by the state at its own initiative. The investigation must be
serious, prompt, thorough, impartial, and in accordance with international
standards in this area.[791]
Furthermore, any inquiry,

[M]ust be undertaken in a serious manner and not as a mere
formality preordained to be ineffective.… Where the acts of private
parties that violate the Convention are not seriously investigated, those
parties are aided in a sense by the government, thereby making the State
responsible on the international plane.[792]

The affected parties must also have access to information
about the development of the investigation.[793]
The Inter-American Commission has stressed that “The importance of due
investigation cannot be overestimated, as deficiencies often prevent and/or
obstruct further efforts to identify, prosecute and punish those
responsible.”[794]

Treating Survivors with
Dignity

In considering states’ compliance with their duties to
investigate cases, regional human rights bodies have recognized the importance
of treating victims in a respectful and humane fashion.

The Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights has noted that lack of respect for the dignity of victims or their
families, a lack of sensitivity, and victim-blaming may have the effect of re-victimizing
them and causing people to turn away from the justice system.[795] In a 2011 case against the US relating to domestic
violence, the Inter-American Commission expressed concern that insensitive
remarks from a dispatcher in Colorado in response to pleas for police action
“result[ed] in a mistrust that the State structure can really protect
women and girl-children from harm, which reproduces the social tolerance
towards these acts.”[796]

The commission also underscored the internationally recognized
principle providing that law enforcement officers, in the performance of their
duties, “shall respect and protect human dignity and maintain and uphold
the human rights of all persons.”[797]

To prevent re-victimization, human rights bodies stress the
importance of proper training of law enforcement officials so that they may
learn to interact with victims in a way that fully respects their dignity. The
Declaration on The Elimination of Violence against Women urges states to
“take measures to ensure that law enforcement officers and public
officials responsible for implementing policies to prevent, investigate and
punish violence against women receive training to sensitize them to the needs of
women.”[798]

The Human Rights Council too has encouraged states to create
gender-sensitized training for law enforcement.[799]
Training alone is insufficient: it must be accompanied by measures to monitor
and evaluate results and to apply sanctions where agents do not comply with
their responsibilities under the law. As an Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights decision states, “Training is one side of the coin and
accountability is the other.”[800]

Impunity

Due investigation, prosecution, and
punishment are not only the required responses to violence against women, but
also key means to prevent future violence.[801] Vigilantly and quickly prosecuting perpetrators
conveys to offenders and the public that society condemns violence against
women.[802] In contrast, not acting “serves to perpetuate
the psychological, social, and historical roots and factors that sustain and
encourage violence against women.”[803]

Since rape is a historically underreported crime, it is all
the more important to respond effectively to those who do come forward. Failing
to do so fosters an environment of impunity, confirms that such violence and
discrimination is acceptable, and fuels its perpetuation—especially since
some studies suggest that perpetrators of rape are frequently repeat offenders.[804]
The denial of an effective response by police both springs from and feeds into
the perception that violence against women is not a serious crime.[805]

Evidence of the MPD’s failure to investigate with due
diligence sexual assaults, discussed in this report, calls into question
whether the government is in violation of its obligations under international
law.

The District of Columbia has laws and policies in place that
would allow for humane treatment of victims and diligent investigation and
prosecution of sexual assault crimes, but it is failing to effectively and
consistently enforce them. It is time for it to do so.

Acknowledgements

Sara Darehshori, senior counsel
with the US Program at Human Rights Watch, researched and wrote this report. Dr.
Brian Root, consultant with Human Rights Watch, analyzed the data and created
the graphs in the “Missing Cases” section. At Human Rights Watch,
this report was reviewed by Alison Parker, director of the US Program; Maria
McFarland, acting director of the US Program; Meghan Rhoad, researcher with the
Women’s Rights Division; Aisling Reidy, senior legal advisor; and Danielle
Haas, senior editor. Megan McLemore and Shantha Rau Barriga in the Health and
Human Rights Division also reviewed portions of the report. Samantha Reiser and
Elena Vanko, associates with the US Program, assisted with research for this
report. Vikram Shah, associate with the US Program, provided assistance with
data analysis. Samantha Reiser and Elena Vanko also assisted with final
preparation of the report, formatting, and footnotes. Layout and production
were coordinated by Grace Choi, publications director, Kathy Mills,
publications specialist, Fitzroy Hepkins, mail manager, Samantha Reiser, and
Elena Vanko.

A friend of Human Rights Watch and photographer, Virginia
Joffe, took the cover photo for the report.

External reviews of portions of this report were conducted
by Sergeant Joanne Archambault and Dr. Kimberly A. Lonsway of End Violence
Against Women International. Sergeant Archambault also generously provided
guidance on police investigations of sexual assault throughout the preparation
of the report. In addition, Sergeant Liz Donegan, Captain Mark Folsom,
Detective Catherine Johnson, Carol Tracy, and Terry Fromson provided valuable
assistance reviewing the section on improving sexual assault investigations. We
also want to thank Bruce Spiva and Catherine Bendor of the Spiva law firm for
their assistance.

An excellent team of pro bono attorneys and their staff at
McDermott, Will & Emery LLP in Washington, D.C., assisted with our records
request from numerous entities in the District of Columbia and represented
Human Rights Watch in the effort to obtain information from the Metropolitan
Police Department: Marc Sorini, Joshua Rogaczewski, and Shauna Barnes. In
addition, Shauna Barnes, and two summer associates, Lisa Peterson and Perrin
Fourmy, provided invaluable assistance with last minute coding of data.

Finally, and most importantly, we are thankful to the sexual
assault survivors who shared their stories with us and to those who work with
sexual assault survivors who were willing to come forward with the hope of
improving treatment for victims in D.C. and elsewhere. Numerous professionals
risked their relations with the MPD because they felt it was important that
this issue be addressed and this report would not have been possible without
their commitment to victims of sexual assault.

[4]
See, for example, Dean G. Kilpatrick, et al, National Crime Victims Research
& Treatment Center, Medical University of South Carolina,
“Drug-Facilitated, Incapacitated, and Forcible Rape: A National
Study,” Document No. 219181, US Department of Justice Award No.
2005-WG-BX-0006, February 1, 2007, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/219181.pdf
(accessed November 19, 2012) (finding 16 percent of all rapes are reported to
law enforcement).

[5]
Susan D.’s (pseudonym) account of her experience is drawn from multiple
interviews with Susan in 2011 and 2012, contemporaneous emails to the police
department, and a letter from Susan to Chief Cathy Lanier, May 3, 2012, on file
at Human Rights Watch. While protecting confidential information, medical staff
provided a corroborating, consistent account during a telephone interview on
March 29, 2011.

[6]
Martin D. Schwartz, “National Institute of Justice Visiting Fellowship:
Police Investigation of Rape – Roadblocks and Solutions,” Doc. No.
232667, US Department of Justice Award No. 2003-IJ-CX-1027, December 2010,
p.15. In other cities with unusually low reported numbers of sexual assaults,
such as Baltimore and New Orleans, investigators found that large numbers of
cases were classified as non-criminal offenses or not documented at all.

[7]
The data from the WHC was provided to Human Rights Watch by the Office of
Victims Services in the mayor’s office, in response to a records request
from Human Rights Watch. The MPD provided the incident reports.

[8]
September 2011 is the last date for which Human Rights Watch has information
available from the hospital. Victims may undergo a forensic exam and decide not
to report to the police or be uncertain as to whether they would like police
involvement. Of 791 patients seen at Washington Hospital Center between October
2008 and September 2011, 260 cases were excluded because a victim decided
against, or was unsure about, pursuing the matter with police or because
records were unclear; 51 (39 known, 12 estimated) additional cases were
excluded because they involved police departments other than the MPD. The
remaining 480 patients who went to the hospital and reported a sexual assault
to the MPD at that time were used for this analysis.

[9]
Special Order, Metropolitan Police Department, “Handling of Sexual Abuse
Cases,” Series SO-07, effective date April 11, 2000, p.3 (“In all
cases, whenever a member responds to a call for service or is notified
regarding an allegation of sexual abuse, a PD Form 251 and PD Form 252 will be
completed.”).

[13]
Office on Violence Against Women, US Department of Justice, “Ensuring
Forensic Medical Exams for All Sexual Assault Victims: A Toolkit for States and
Territories,” December 2008, p. 15, http://www.vaw.umn.edu/documents/mcasatoolkit/mcasatoolkit.docbook.orig-ndvh.html#ftn.id595022
(accessed December 19, 2012), p. 15. The study in Los Angeles found that
victims underwent a forensic exam in 50 percent of reported sexual assaults.
See Cassia Spohn and Katharine Tellis, “Policing and Prosecuting Sexual
Assault in Los Angeles City and County: A Collaborative Study in Partnership
with the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office,”
Document No. 237582, US Department of Justice Number 2009-WG-BX-0009, February
2012, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/237582.pdf; and Human Rights Watch email
correspondence with Cassia Spohn, October 25, 2012. Human Rights Watch’s
review of cases in Illinois over a 10-year period found that only 31 percent of
reported rapes resulted in the administration of a forensic exam. See Human
Rights Watch, United States – “I Used to Think the Law Would
Protect Me”: Illinois’s Failure to Test Rape Kits, July 7, 2010,
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2010/07/07/i-used-think-law-would-protect-me-0, p.
9.

[14]
These include 173 police reports showing that the victim did not go to a
hospital or went to a hospital other than Washington Hospital Center—and
which we excluded from the date comparison analysis—but they exclude
cases in which the victim reported bodily contact that would not lead to a forensic
exam, such as a slap on the bottom. The MPD stated in one of its letters to
Human Rights Watch that it has 1,500 WACIIS entries for the time period
analyzed by Human Rights Watch. However, as noted above, for determining
whether an investigation was opened into an assault, it is the existence of an
incident report that is relevant, as without one there is no investigation. The
subject of this report is whether there is appropriate investigation of sexual
assault cases. MPD also states that it provided 1,080 incident reports to Human
Rights Watch. Over the course of multiple productions, MPD actually provided
1,358 incident reports. However, 787 were not relevant for comparison to the
number of reports made by sexual assault victims who had sought a forensic exam
at Washington Hospital Center: 317 were outside of the time frame of this
analysis, 353 were for cases characterized by minimal contact that would not
lead to a forensic exam or were non-sex offenses, and 117 were juvenile
offenses. Our analysis did include misdemeanors and other cases in which
significant contact was indicated.

[15]
In fact, in some months, the hospital records more cases reported to the MPD
than the total number of sexual assault reports or “allegations”
MPD has on file for the same month.

[16]
Understaffing does not appear to be a factor in deciding to close cases.
According to a February 2012 letter from the MPD to a City Council member,
SAU/Sex Squad detectives had 23 cases each in 2010; the “ideal [annual]
case load” per detective is 36. Letter from Metropolitan Police
Department to Phil Mendelson, council member, in response to February 14, 2012
correspondence in advance of performance oversight hearing, February 24, 2012,
http://dcclims1.dccouncil.us/mendelson/archive_pr/COJ%20Performance%20and%20Budget%202012/Later%20Rounds/MPD%20FY12%20Performance%20Responses,%202nd%20Round,%202.24.12.pdf
(accessed November 21, 2012), p. 12 (for calendar year 2011, the number
increased to 40 cases per detective). In Florida and Oregon, sexual assault
unit detectives handle average caseloads of 54-110 cases per year.

[18]
Ibid. An allegation is supposed to be investigated until it is upgraded to a
case, closed as “unfounded,” or until investigative leads have been
exhausted.

[19]
In addition, dozens of incident reports Human Rights Watch received from the
MPD for sexual assault cases not classified as “miscellaneous”
included identifying information about victims (including names, addresses, and
telephone numbers), raising questions about whether the MPD is strictly
adhering to rules against including that information on incident reports and
whether it is taking appropriate care in its responses to public records
requests.

[27]
In the District of Columbia, “misdemeanor sex abuse” (punishable by
not more than 180 days imprisonment and a fine not to exceed $1,000) is defined
as “whoever engages in a sexual act or sexual contact with another person
and who should have knowledge or reason to know that the act was committed
without that other person’s permission.” Misdemeanor sexual abuse,
D.C. Code Ann. § 22-3006. A sexual act is defined as “The
penetration, however slight, of the anus or vulva of another by a penis;
contact between the mouth and the penis, the mouth and the vulva, or the mouth
and the anus.” Sexual acts also include ”the penetration, however
slight, of the anus or vulva by a hand or finger or by any object, with an
intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual
desire of any person.” D.C. Code Section 22-3001 (8). Therefore sexual
acts, including oral, vaginal, and anal penetration, which are not committed on
an incapacitated victim or forcibly, may technically be misdemeanors (along
with groping cases) under D.C. law.

[31]
Elsewhere, a high rate of rejection of warrants has been linked to such overuse
of exceptional clearances. See Cassia Spohn and Katharine Tellis, US Department
of Justice, “Policing and Prosecuting Sexual Assault in Los Angeles City
and County: A Collaborative Study in Partnership with the Los Angeles Police
Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and the Los
Angeles County District Attorney’s Office,” Document No. 237582, US
Department of Justice Award Number 2009-WG-BX-0009, February 2012,
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/237582.pdf (accessed October 24,
2012).

[32]TheWashington Post found that 15 percent of homicides in the
District between 2000 and 2011 were closed as “administrative
closures” without an arrest and counted the same as “arrests”
in closure statistics. Cheryl Thompson, “D.C. homicides: In 15 percent of
closed cases, no charges and no arrests,” Washington Post, October
14, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/dc-homicides-in-15-percent-of-closed-cases-no-arrests-and-no-trial/2012/10/13/2fb8e5d6-fb8b-11e1-b2af-1f7d12fe907a_story.html
(accessed November 21, 2012).

[33]
For 2008 and 2009, the MPD reported 15 and 18 arrests respectively to Human
Rights Watch, and “clearance” rates at the FBI of 65.1 percent and
76.7 percent. Spreadsheets on file at Human Rights Watch; letter from
Metropolitan Police Department to Phil Mendelson, council member, February 24,
2012, p.12. FBI data include cases against females under the age of 18, but for
2008 and 2009 the arrest data provided to Human Rights Watch do not show any
arrests for child sexual abuse. Arrests are also not indicative of whether or
not a case was ultimately prosecuted.

[34]
While these statements may seem surprising to some, they are not an uncommon
response to poor treatment by law enforcement. Insensitive treatment by those
in positions of authority to whom victims turned for help can intensify
victims’ feelings of shame, guilt, and powerlessness and can cause
additional emotional distress. The likelihood of such revictimization is higher
in cases of non-stranger assault. See Rebecca Campbell, “The
Psychological Impact of Rape Victims’ Experiences with the Legal,
Medical, and Mental Health Systems,” American Psychologist,
November 2008.

[52]
Office of Police Complaints, Complaint Form, May 4, 2007, on file at Human
Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch is not privy to information about
investigations performed by the Office of Police Complaints (OPC) into
complaints, though in some instances we received conclusions by the OPC either
forwarding the information to the MPD because a complaint was outside its
jurisdiction or, in two instances, a letter finding no misconduct had occurred.
Whether or not “misconduct” was officially found to have occurred,
the attitude described in the complaint letters is contrary to the sensitive
and victim-centered approach undertaken by police departments with effective
responses to crimes of sexual assault.

[55]
Human Rights Watch interview with Commander George Kucik, Lieutenant Pamela
Burkett-Jones, Sergeant Keith Ronald Reed, and Tyria Fields, program manager
for Victim Services, Washington, D.C., May 30, 2012. The letter from the Chief
of Police to Human Rights Watch dated June 8, 2012 also references the quiet
room as established to ensure victims are interviewed in a quiet, private
location.

[79]
In addition to seven complaints from sexual assault victims to the Office of
Police Complaints, Human Rights Watch is aware of at least four written
complaints by sexual assault survivors made directly to MPD, as well as
frequent informal complaints about SAU detectives’ treatment of victims
raised by medical staff and advocates with sergeants in the SAU over the past
three years. A letter that the MPD sent to the D.C. City Council in February
2012 stated that only one officer has been disciplined for inappropriate
treatment of a sexual assault victim since June 2006. In the instance cited, a
detective was suspended in November 2009 for 15 days after inappropriately
contacting a sexual assault victim on Facebook. Letter from Metropolitan Police
Department to Phil Mendelson, council member, February 24, 2012, p. 15. The chief
of police told Human Rights Watch that four detectives were transferred from
the unit in 2009 in response to concerns raised by the student’s lawsuit
and that she was unaware of any complaints about misconduct from SAU members,
apart from one, that had been sustained. Human Rights Watch telephone interview
with Cathy Lanier, chief of police, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington,
D.C., June 1, 2012; letter from Chief Lanier to Human Rights Watch, June 8,
2012, on file at Human Rights Watch.

[80]
Human Rights Watch interview with Carol Tracy, executive director, Women’
Law Project, Philadelphia, November 1, 2011 (recounting advice she received
from a criminologist who consulted with police departments).

[81]
Many of these were duplicates or misdemeanors with minimal physical contact
that fall outside of our analysis.

[83]
Metropolitan Police Department, Sexual Assault Unit SOP, January 14, 2003, pp.
55-57. The SOP indicate these forms are “probably the most important
report you will initially fill out in a sex offense investigation” and
should contain an “as complete as possible” account of the
complainant’s report, the investigation, and other important information about
the case. It states, “The importance of documentation cannot be overly
stressed,” as “you have no idea who will be looking at it
later.” Ibid., pp. 52-55.

[86]
See Washington Metro Transit Authority, http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/transit_police/;
The United States Park Police, http://www.nps.gov/uspp/; United States Capitol
Police, http://www.uscapitolpolice.gov/faq.php; United States Secret Service, http://www.secretservice.gov/whoweare.shtml
(all accessed January 10, 2013).

[87]
Human Rights Watch interview with Commander George Kucik, Lieutenant Pamela
Burkett-Jones, Sergeant Keith Ronald Reed, and Tyria Fields, program manager
for Victim Services, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.C., May 30,
2012. Detectives for the SAU are generally selected from a pool of veteran
detectives. Two of the 16 detectives are assigned to investigate cold cases.

[90]
Metropolitan Police Academy, Recruit Officer Training Program, “DC CODE
Crimes against Persons,” Sergeant Richard Ehrlich, May 2011, p. 39, on
file at Human Rights Watch (“Patrol officers need to determine whether it
was a sexual act or sexual contact that took place, what method did the suspect
employ to achieve the act or contact and what is the relationship between the
actor and the victim.”).

[93]
General Order, Metropolitan Police Department, “Adult Sexual Assault
Investigations,” Series 304, Number 06, effective date August 25, 2011,
p. 4. Although this order post-dates much of the research for this report, as
discussed below, it is nearly identical in substance to the 2006 General Order
governing sexual assault investigations that it replaced.

[97]
If the patient reports to a different hospital, they are supposed to be
transferred to the Washington Hospital Center unless they have acute injuries
requiring urgent attention. Victims under 18 years of age are referred to the
Children’s National Medical Center, www.dcrcc.org/sexual_assault/getting_a_forensic_exam/
(accessed May 23, 2012).

[101]
General Order, Metropolitan Police Department, “Adult Sexual Assault
Investigations,” Series 304, Number 06, effective date August 25, 2011,
p. 11. A prior Special Order, “Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners
Program,” dated April 2, 2001, SO-01-06, also instructed that it was the
detectives’ responsibility to deliver forensic exams to Mobile Crime
“immediately after the examination, or at least within 24 hours.”

[102]
General Order, Metropolitan Police Department, “Adult Sexual Assault
Investigations,” Series 304, Number 06, effective date August 25, 2011,
p. 12. The prior General Order about adult sexual assault investigations does
not specify a time frame but indicates that an SAU detective responding to the
scene of a sexual assault is responsible for scheduling a follow-up interview
with the victim at the SAU’s office. General Order, Metropolitan Police
Department, “Adult Sexual Assault Investigations,” Series 304, Number
6, effective December 22, 2006, p. 12.

[105]
Victims, advocates, and others interviewed for this report all reported
positively about the quality and efficiency of care for victims at Washington
Hospital Center, which is described as a significant improvement over the prior
SANE program.

[106]
Email from medical staff to OVS, April 6, 2009, on file at Human Rights Watch.
However, the Washington Hospital Center chief medical officer, Dr. Janis
Orlowski, emphasized that in her view, the “MPD has been a strong
partner” since the beginning. Though Dr. Orlowski has never attended a SART
meeting, she received reports about clinical programs. Human Rights Watch
telephone interview with Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief medical officer and chief
operating officer for Washington Hospital Center, September 20, 2012.

[111]
General Order, Metropolitan Police Department, “Adult Sexual Assault
Investigations,” Series 304, Number 06, effective date December 22, 2006.
The new order is also organized slightly differently and excludes instructions
for those who take calls from sexual assault victims. Other word changes are
minor. For example, in 2011, SAU detectives are to “make every attempt to
arrive on scene as soon as practicable.” In 2006 the SAU detective was to
“make every attempt to arrive on the scene within an hour.” In 2011
the Order references picking up the Sexual Assault Evidence Kit within 24 hours
of the completion of the exam; in 2006 detectives were to pick up the kit
“when the exam is completed” (though a separate order from 2001
specifies kits are to be picked up within 24 hours).

[119]
According to its website, UASK (University Assault. Services, Knowledge) is a
joint project between Men Can Stop Rape and the Office of Victim Services. It
provides information about resources to sexual assault survivors. See http://www.uaskdc.org/about-u-ask
(accessed December 21, 2012).

[122]
Testimony from a 2008 lawsuit indicates that since 2006, responding officers
were required to “immediately notify the Sexual Assault Unit.”
Testimony of Detective Vincent Spriggs, October 23, 2008, p. 80-81; see also
testimony of Sgt. George Maradiaga, July 14, 2008, pp. 150-51.

[123]
“UASK is a project of Men Can Stop Rape and the District of Columbia
Executive Office of the Mayor Office of Victim Services,” http://www.uaskdc.org/about-u-ask
(accessed January 9, 2013).

[124]
The new definition introduced in 2012 is, “penetration,
no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or
oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the
victim."

[125]
See Civil Rights Division, US Department of Justice, “Investigation of
the Puerto Rico Police Department,” September 5, 2011, p. 57 (expressing
concern about the low reported number of rapes compared to murders).

[126]
US Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, “Investigation of the
New Orleans Police Department,” March 16, 2011, pp. 43-49 (finding that
the NOPD’s strikingly low number of reported rapes was likely a result of
diverting complaints of possible sexual assault into a category of non-criminal
or miscellaneous complaints, resulting in a sweeping failure to properly
investigate many rapes and sexual assaults); Justin Fenton, “City rape
statistics, investigations draw concern: Police defend tactics, but mayor
orders review,” Baltimore Sun, June 27, 2010 (finding that in 4 of
10 emergency calls to police involving allegations of rape, officers concluded
there was no need for review, so the cases did not make it to detectives; more
than 30 percent of cases that did go to detectives were deemed unfounded).

[127]
Federal Bureau of Investigations, US Department of Justice, “Table 4:
Crime in the United States by Region, Geographic Division, and State,
2008-2009,” September 2010,
http://ww2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_04.html (accessed May 23, 2012).

[131]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview with community advocate R.L., March 9,
2011 (describing a survivor who lived in a group home who was assaulted by an
acquaintance who offered to give her a ride from the Metro stop; the police
said, “Your case isn’t going to be investigated”); Human
Rights Watch telephone interview with L.P., March 16, 2011 (recalling a case of
a homeless person where the police did not spend any time with her and
“it was clear they were not going to do anything to help”); Human
Rights Watch telephone interview with medical staff I.L., December 7, 2011
(recounting a case of an assault in a court-appointed halfway house; rather
than make an effort to persuade the victim to talk to him, the detective
“blew her off,” despite the fact that the assault took place in a
government facility).

[138]
Sgt. Joanne Archambault, Dr. Kimberly Lonsway, and End Violence Against Women
International (EVAWI), “Clearance Methods for Sexual Assault
Cases,” July 2007 (updated May 2012), p. 27. In police files, for
example, one detective noted that the complainant “advised that she did
not call the police for help because she has made several police reports in the
past and did not receive satisfactory service.” Human Rights Watch notes
from review of MPD investigative files, SX10-XXX, August 22, 2012, on file at
Human Rights Watch.

[140]
Ibid. The only time a report would not be prepared, according to Commander
Kucik, is “if there is definitive information the report is
untruthful.”

[141]
Deposition testimony of Sergeant George Maradiaga, --- v. The District of
Columbia et al., July 14, 2008, pp. 135-36; Special Order, Metropolitan
Police Department “Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Program (SANE),”
SO-01-06, effective date April 2, 2001, p. 3; General Order, Metropolitan
Police Department, “Adult Sexual Assault Investigations,” Series
304 number 06, effective date December 22, 2006, p. 10; Special Order,
Metropolitan Police Department, “Handling of Sexual Abuse Cases,”
SO-07, effective date April 11, 2000, p. 3 (“In all cases, whenever a
member responds to a call for service or is notified regarding an allegation of
sexual abuse, a PD Form 251 and PD Form 252 will be completed, documenting the
allegations.”).

[142]
The form has changed during the time period for which we received forms. Until
2009 most forms were filled out manually, by filling in circles for certain
information. More recent forms are computerized.However, MPD data collection methods are inconsistent and incomplete.
Many fields are consistently left blank by reporting officers.

[144]
An incident report is supposed to be completed documenting complaints of sexual
abuse even if no crime was deemed to have occurred, if the offense occurred in
another jurisdiction, if the sexual activity was not a crime, or if the
offender was arrested in another jurisdiction. Metropolitan Police Department,
Sexual Assault Unit SOP, p.31-33.

[154]
Victims assaulted in Maryland or Virginia occasionally report for an exam at
Washington Hospital Center. Also, some cases in D.C. that occur in parks fall
under the jurisdiction of the US Park Police or the Metro Transit Police. WHC
provided information on the police department cases which were referred from/to
for 24 of the 36 months studied; 39 patients were reported to non-MPD police
departments during these months, including 6 in August and 4 in September 2011.
Human Rights Watch estimated the number of non-MPD cases for the remaining 12
months. Because August and September 2011 were outliers, Human Rights Watch
used the median of non-MPD cases reported to WHC per month (1) to estimate
non-MPD cases in the 12 months for which we do not have data. Therefore, a
total of 51 cases (39 reported, 12 estimated) were removed from analysis due to
being reported to non-MPD police departments. For the 12 estimated cases, we
removed cases that did not match a date for an MPD PD-251.

[155]
Human Rights Watch used dates for the comparison because we did not have other
victim identifying information that could be used to match hospital reports
with police reports. Some cases that we counted as matches with police reports may
in fact be cases in which a victim happened to report to MPD within 24 hours of
a different victim reporting at the hospital. When we were unable to determine
from police information whether the victim had a forensic exam at WHC, we gave
the benefit of the doubt to the police department and assumed it could be a
potential match.

[156]
Human Rights Watch included all attempted sexual assaults, even though in many
cases where there was no penetration, no sexual assault kit was completed.
However, forensic evidence (such as saliva swabs) should be gathered as long as
there is contact between the victim and suspect, even if there is no
penetration.

[157]
Of the 183 police records indicating the victim went to the Washington Hospital
Center, 177 were recorded within 24 hours of a WHC hospital report. Five
“office information” cases and two “allegations”
corresponded to “non-reports” at the hospital.

[158]
In the Human Rights Watch interview with Commander George Kucik, Lieutenant
Pamela Burkett-Jones, Sergeant Keith Ronald Reed, and Tyria Fields, program
manager for victims services on May 30, 2012, MPD confirmed that PD-251s are
all completed during an officer or detective’s shift.

[159]
Human Rights Watch initially also compared hospital reports to crime report
data about sexual assaults made publicly available on the MPD’s website
and obtained similar results. However, in its June 8, 2012 response to our
findings, the MPD raised concerns that the data on its website was incomplete,
as it did not include cases in which it was not clear a sexual assault had
occurred. Therefore we have excluded the website-based analysis from this
report.

[160]
Cases deemed for “office information” only are also sometimes
called “miscellaneous” cases or “sick or injured person to
hospital.”

[161]
See Cassia Spohn and Katharine Tellis, “Policing and Prosecuting Sexual
Assault in Los Angeles City and County: A Collaborative Study in Partnership
with the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office,”
Document No. 237582, US Department of Justice Number 2009-WG-BX-0009, February
2012, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/237582.pdf(accessed
November 30, 2012), p. III; Human Rights Watch email correspondence with Cassia
Spohn, October 25, 2012..

[162]
See Human Rights Watch, United States – “I Used to Think the Law
Would Protect Me”: Illinois’s Failure to Test Rape Kits, July 7,
2010, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2010/07/07/i-used-think-law-would-protect-me-0,
p. 9.

[163]
Office on Violence Against Women, US Department of Justice, “Ensuring
Forensic Medical Exams for All Sexual Assault Victims: A Toolkit for States and
Territories,” December 2008, p. 15.

[170]
“Unfounding” a case is also a term of art. Under the FBI
guidelines, a case can only be “unfounded” if it is
“determined through investigation to be false or baseless. In other
words, no crime occurred.” Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook 2004, Federal
Bureau of Investigations, US Department of Justice, p. 77, at
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/additional-ucr-publications/ucr_handbook.pdf
(accessed May 11, 2012). A case cannot be considered false or baseless if no
investigation was conducted or if it yielded insufficient evidence. For a case
to be considered officially “unfounded” at the MPD, a written
report is supposed to be prepared and approved by a supervisor. Deposition
testimony of Detective Elgin Wheeler, October 3, 2008, pp. 226-27, 230; MPD
Standard Operating Procedures, Sexual Assault Unit, p. 32. The number of
officially “unfounded” MPD cases is low. In 2008, for example, only
nine rapes were unfounded according to information provided to the FBI, a
percentage of cases (4.84%) much lower than many other cities. Federal Bureau
of Investigations, Uniform Crime Reporting data, on file at Human Rights Watch.

[178]
“Sexual Assault Response and Investigation: Portland efforts fall short
of a victim-centered approach,” A Report from the City Auditor, June
2007, www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=158873 (accessed May 24,
2012), p. 28 (reporting a median of 54 sexual assault cases per detective in
nine cities, and a five-year average of 56 cases per detective in Portland);
William Prummell, “Allocation of Personnel: Investigations,”
(analyzing caseload for detectives in Charlotte County, Florida and citing a
Florida average of 72-96 major crimes cases per detective), on file at Human
Rights Watch. Elsewhere sex crimes detectives carry as many as 110 cases
per year. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Sgt. Joanne Archambault,
Addy, Washington, May 15, 2012.

[180]
In re-reviewing WHC records, we also included exam exemption reports in which
nurses documented that victims reported to MPD at WHC despite not getting
forensic exams. Because of the corrections after reviewing police data, and the
inclusion of the exam exemptions who reported to police, the total number of
cases for which no matching PD-251 could be located increased to 183 cases in
the final analysis.

[193]
Exhibit A to Plaintiff’s Opposition to the Defendants’ Refiled
Motion for Partial Dismissal or in the Alternative for Partial Summary
Judgment, Plaintiff’s Statement of Material Facts in Opposition to
Defendants; Motion for Summary Judgment, citing deposition testimony of
[Rachel], April 1, 2008, paras. 104-110, and deposition testimony of
[Rachel’s sister], March 31, 2008, pp. 177-79.

[195]
Deposition testimony of Officer Ginette Leveque, --- v. The District of
Columbia et al., April 14, 2008, pp. 24, 29, 37 (In contrast, she was
disciplined for misusing her laptop because she used the word
“hell” in a text message. Ibid. pp. 19-20). Tandreia Green was also
disciplined for a paperwork issue, but not for her handling of the case in the
lawsuit. Deposition testimony of Officer Tandreia Green, --- v. The District
of Columbia et al., May 8, 2008, pp. 20-21.

[199]
An additional problem is that prior to the change in policy in 2008 that allows
victims to get a forensic exam without police authorization, the on-the-spot
determination that no crime was committed also meant a sexual assault victim
would be denied SANE exams by police who instructed hospitals not to examine
complainants. Deposition testimony of Detective Vincent Spriggs, October 23,
2008, pp. 184-85. The decision of whether or not to authorize a kit was also
made by a detective without guidelines from superiors. Deposition testimony of
Detective Sergeant Kevin Steven Rice, October 14, 2008, pp. 101-103. This
policy has changed, and a victim now does not require any police permission or
authorization to avail themselves of a SANE exam, though as discussed below,
police still sometimes indicate an exam is not warranted or “authorized.”

[200]
Exam Exemption forms, through October 2011, on file at Human Rights Watch.

[201]
For example, in one case, the patient left the hospital before her exam, and
the nurse noted, “MPD Detectives have already seen the patient and will
not investigate.” District of Columbia Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners
Exam Exemption Report, June 23, 2010, on file at Human Rights Watch.

[202]
Human Rights Watch notes from review of MPD investigative files, SA10-XXX,
SA10-XXX, SA10-XXX, SA11-XXX, August 21, 2012, on file at Human Rights Watch.
Other cases are closed before results from forensic exams are returned, even
when forensic evidence might address important issues in the case. Ibid.,
SA09-XXX, SX09-XXX.

[219]
A letter from MPD’s lawyer defines SX files as “sexual assault
cases that were further investigated by the Sexual Assault Unit.” Letter
from Natasha Cenatus, FOIA officer, Metropolitan Police Department, July 26,
2011, on file at Human Rights Watch.

[220]
Metropolitan Police Department, Sexual Assault Unit SOP, January 14, 2003, pp.
31-32. However, as described above and elsewhere in this report, in a number of
cases in which the victim is too intoxicated to report or otherwise is unclear
about elements of the crime, the case is classified as an “office
information” case rather than an allegation and is not followed up.

[224]
Human Rights Watch notes from review of MPD investigative files, SA11-XXX,
August 21, 2012. In contrast, in a February 2011 case, a detective notes
meeting a complainant at the hospital who was incoherent and unable to tell the
detective details of what happened to her. The detective wrote, “I
advised the complainant that I would return at a better time.” The detective
did follow up, and the case was upgraded from an allegation to a sex abuse
case, eventually resulting in an arrest. Human Rights Watch notes from review
of MPD investigative files, SA11-XXX/SX11-XXX, August 22, 2012.

[226]
In addition, Human Rights Watch received dozens of PD-251s from the MPD for
sexual assault cases not classified as “miscellaneous” that
included identifying information about victims (including names, addresses, and
telephone numbers) in violation of MPD guidelines.

[256]
D.C. Code Section 22-3001. “Sexual acts” also include “The
penetration, however slight, of the anus or vulva of another by a penis;
contact between the mouth and the penis, the mouth and the vulva, or the mouth
and the anus.”

[257]
Internal OVS email describing account of case, dated April 18, 2011, on file at
Human Rights Watch. It is possible the detective thought the suspect was
searching for drugs.

[258]
Ibid; An exemption form indicates a detective informed the patient that it was
a robbery and physical assault and not a sexual assault and that detectives
already got the person who assaulted her. The victim said, “I do not feel
like dealing with this situation. I am already embarrassed enough.”
District of Columbia, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Exam Exemption Report,
dated April 13, 2011, on file at Human Rights Watch. Sergeants who supervise the
unit are to ensure that all reports and investigations are properly classified,
and they are responsible for the proper investigation of all cases assigned to
their squad members. Metropolitan Police Department, Sexual Assault Unit SOP,
January 14, 2003, p. 96-97.

[261]
Misdemeanor sexual abuse, D.C. Code Ann. § 22-3006. A sexual act is
defined as “The penetration, however slight, of the anus or vulva of
another by a penis; contact between the mouth and the penis, the mouth and the
vulva, or the mouth and the anus.” Sexual acts also include ”the
penetration, however slight, of the anus or vulva by a hand or finger or by any
object, with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or
gratify the sexual desire of any person” D.C. Code Section 22-3001 (8).

[262]
A review of state law found that of the 15 states that define sexual assault in
a way that includes sexual penetration without consent, only one state
(Alabama) classifies it as a misdemeanor. Even in Alabama, the punishment for
such an assault is up to a year, twice as long as in D.C.. Sexual Misconduct, Ala.
Code Sec. 13A-6-65 (2010). Elsewhere, a sexual act of penetration without
consent is considered a felony with a multi-year sentence. See, for example,
Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree, Or. Rev. Stat. Ann. Sec. 163.425 (West 2011)
Sexual Battery; Miss. Code Ann. Sec. 97-3-95 (West 2010); Sexual Battery,
penalty, Miss. Code Ann. Sec. 97-3-101 (West 2010); Sexual assault, penalties,
Mo. Ann. Stat. Sec. 566.040 (West 2011); Rape in the third degree, N.Y. Penal
Law Sec. 130.25 (McKinney 2011). The FBI now defines rape as “The
penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or
object or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the
consent of the victim.” “UCR Program Changes Definition of Rape:
Includes All Victims and Omits Requirement of Physical Force,” Federal
Bureau of Investigations, March 2012, http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/cjis-link/march-2012/ucr-program-changes-definition-of-rape
(accessed November 16, 2012). While D.C.’s definition of misdemeanor sex
abuse seems out of step with laws elsewhere, it is beyond the scope of this
report to compare the District’s approach to that of other jurisdictions
to determine its effectiveness. Prosecutors interviewed for this report in the
District appreciated having the ability to prosecute difficult cases in front of
a judge—rather than a jury—which would not be possible if the
punishment were more severe. Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with C.L.,
assistant US attorney, Washington D.C., September 18, 2012; with M.G.,
assistant US attorney, Washington D.C., September 19, 2012; and with S.R.,
assistant US attorney, September 18, 2012. However, an expert advises that if
you never try these cases before juries, they are never going to understand
them or convict, so it is a self-perpetuating cycle. And the result is that
victims are less safe because offenders are not held accountable. Human Rights
Watch email correspondence with Jennifer Long, director, Aequitas:The
Prosecutors’ Resource on Violence Against Women, October 24, 2012.

[270]
Human Rights Watch notes from review of MPD investigative files, SX09-XXX,
August 22, 2012. In response to notice about Human Rights Watch’s concern
about misclassification of this case, Chief Lanier informed Human Rights Watch
on December 20, 2012, that the case was thoroughly investigated and presented
to the US Attorney’s Office for prosecution, but in this case
“there was no effort to upgrade the charges.” Letter from Chief
Lanier to Human Rights Watch, December 20, 2012. When a case is presented to
the US Attorney’s Office it should mean that the classification was
reviewed and approved by a sergeant and a lieutenant. If that happened in this
case, that is troubling. Furthermore, according to records on that case
reviewed by Human Rights Watch, the US Attorney’s Office declined a
warrant request made two-and-a-half weeks after the incident, following an
investigation that raises several causes for concern. The investigation of this
case is discussed further in the Administrative Closures section below.

[294]
The Washington Post found that 15 percent of homicides in the District between
2000 and 2011 were closed as “administrative” closures without an
arrest, and each is counted the same as “an arrest” in closure
statistics. Cheryl Thompson, “D.C. homicides: In 15 percent of closed
cases, no charges and no arrests,” The Washington Post, October
14, 2012.

[295]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview with S.R., assistant US attorney,
Washington, D.C., September 18, 2012. The prosecutor also indicated that for
sexual assaults, “it is not about closure rates, it is about serving
victims,” emphasizing the need to reward detectives who treat victims
well, regardless of the outcome of the case.

[296]
Federal Bureau of Investigations, Uniform Crime Reports, “Offenses
Cleared,” http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/clearances
(accessed October 24, 2012); see also Cassia Spohn and Katharine Tellis,
“Policing and Prosecuting Sexual Assault in Los Angeles City and County:
A Collaborative Study in Partnership with the Los Angeles Police Department,
the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and the Los Angeles County
District Attorney’s Office,” Document No. 237582, US
Department of Justice Aware Number 2009-WG-BX-0009, February 2012, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/237582.pdf
(October 24, 2012), p. IV.

[297]
Federal Bureau of Investigations, US Department of Justice, “Uniform
Crime Reporting Handbook 2004.”
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/additional-ucr-publications/ucr_handbook.pdf
(accessed January 10, 2013), p. 80. Current guidelines are not clear about how
to “clear” or “close” cases that have been thoroughly
investigated but declined for prosecution. In those cases, it may be acceptable
to clear a case exceptionally even though an arrest is theoretically possible.
Cases that have not been thoroughly investigated, however, should not be
cleared exceptionally. To help clarify ambiguities, some experts believe the
FBI should consider further revising UCR clearance categories to be brought in
line with current practice. In addition to disaggregating “arrest”
and “exceptional clearance” data, tracking cases on the basis of
prosecutorial outcome would provide the public with more meaningful information
on what ultimately happens to sexual assault cases reported in communities.
Sgt. Joanne Archambault and Kimberly Lonsway, “Police Clearance Methods:
How Are They Currently Defined—and How Should They Be Used?” Sexual
Assault Report, volume 15, number 4, 2012, pp. 53-58, 63.

[300]
In some cases, the police may discourage a victim from cooperating. It is not
always possible to determine from notes in the file whether this has occurred,
but the section on “Discouraging Reporting” includes some examples
in which police actions may have resulted in victims no longer cooperating.

[301]
Some cases were investigated as first degree sex abuse but downgraded to
misdemeanors by prosecutors. For example, one warrant request specified that
“the complainant was forced to have oral and vaginal sex with D”
and was investigated as a first degree sex abuse case, but a warrant was issued
for a misdemeanor. Human Rights Watch notes from review of MPD investigative
files, SX10-XXX, August 22, 2012.

[302]
Email correspondence from former prosecutor to Human Rights Watch, October 17,
2012, on file at Human Rights Watch.

[303]
See Cassia Spohn and Katharine Tellis, “Policing and Prosecuting Sexual
Assault in Los Angeles City and County: A Collaborative Study in Partnership
with the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office,”
Document No. 237582, US Department of Justice Aware Number 2009-WG-BX-0009,
February 2012, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/237582.pdf, p.131.

[306]
The report found the that clearance rate for the Los Angeles Police Department
from 2005-2009 was 45.7 percent, with 12.2 percent cleared by arrest and 33.5
percent cleared by exceptional means. For the Los Angeles County
Sheriff’s Department, the report found an 88.3 percent clearance rate for
the same period, with 33.9 percent cleared by arrest and 54.4 percent cleared
by exceptional means. Ibid., pp. I-II.

[307]
Federal Bureau of Investigations, Uniform Crime Reports, Table 25,
“Percent of Offenses Cleared by Arrest or Exceptional Means, By
Population Group,” http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats (accessed
November 16, 2012). The average clearance rate for cities with populations
between 500,000 and 1,000,000 for forcible rape was 41.6 percent in 2008; for
2010, 40.6 percent, and for 2011, 40.1 percent.

[309]
D.C. reported the following number of rapes under the UCR: 192 (2007), 186
(2008), 150 (2009), 184 (2010), 172 (2011). However, this number may include
assaults on juveniles and exclude assaults other than forcible male penile
penetration of a female vagina. For the same time period, the D.C. Code Index
Crimes shows the following number of sexual assaults: 142 (2007), 156 (2008),
134 (2009), 149 (2010), 174 (2011). Letter from Metropolitan Police Department
to Phil Mendelson, council member, p. 2.

[310]
Arrest data from October 2008 through May 31, 2011, provided to Human Rights
Watch, on file at Human Rights Watch.

[353]
International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) National Law Enforcement
Policy Center, “Investigating Sexual Assaults,” initially published
November 1999, revised July 2005, pp. 10-11.

[354]
Amanda Hess, “Test Case: You’re Not a Rape Victim Unless Police Say
So. This is the story of the night Hannah was not officially raped,” Washington
City Paper, April 9, 2010, http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/38671/test-case-youre-not-a-rape-victim-unless-police-say/full
(accessed January 9, 2012).

[392]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview and email exchange with Kelly Higashi,
assistant US attorney, Washington, D.C., June 4, 2012. In addition, a number of
cases are investigated by MPD’s Human Trafficking Unit, which is not a
part of the Sexual Assault Unit.

[400]
A 2006 survey by an organization that works primarily with street sex workers
in Washington, D.C., found that 90 percent of 149 respondents had experienced
violence, but only one of those women said she would go to the police if she
were hurt. See Alliance for a Safe & Diverse D.C., “Move Along: Policing
Sex Work in Washington, D.C.,” 2008, p. 17 (citing Helping Individual
Prostitutes Survive (HIPS), Survey on Violence, Washington D.C., 2006). The
Move Along report also notes police indifference and poor response to violence
against sex workers and transgender women and instances when the police
themselves commit violence against sex workers.

[401]
Survey respondents indicated that police had sometimes made the situation worse—insulting
or abusing people who had turned to them for help, arresting them, or asking
respondents for sex—rather than investigating the crimes committed
against them. See Alliance for a Safe & Diverse D.C., “Move Along:
Policing Sex Work in Washington, D.C.,” p. 56. An SAU detective was
arrested for solicitation of a prostitute on July 11, 2008. Deposition
testimony of Detective Elgin Wheeler, October 3, 2008, pp. 25-26.

[417]
In a telephone interview with Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief medical officer and
chief operating officer for Washington Hospital Center, she indicated that
though she is not directly involved with the SANE program activities, in her
position she receives “assessments of the quality and safety of clinical
programs, including the SANE program.” In this capacity, she said that
she was aware of some early complaints about the MPD and had done an internal
review and believed that they “surrounded a particular individual”
and that the internal review—conducted in 2010 or early 2011—did
not support the complaints. However, as no other individual interviewed for
this report—including 14 individuals who work or have worked in the SANE
program at WHC—raised the existence of or confirmed the existence of such
an internal review, Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm the
report’s existence or assess its contents. The information gathered for
this report primarily took place after the time period that the report would
have covered (2009). Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Dr. Janis
Orlowski, September 20, 2012.

[431]
David Lisa et al., “False Allegations of Sexual Assault: An Analysis of
Ten Years of Reported Cases,” Violence Against Women, December 16,
2010, 16:1318 (finding a false report rate of 5.9 percent over a 10-year study
of reported sexual assaults at a major northeastern university).

[433]
See Debra Patterson, “The Impact of Detectives’ Manner of
Questioning on Rape Victims’ Disclosure,” Violence Against Women,
January 11, 2012; and Debra Patterson, “The Linkage Between Secondary Victimization
by Law Enforcement and Rape Case Outcomes,” Journal of Interpersonal
Violence, March 17, 2010. If the police do not believe the victim, they may
perhaps make this known to her by aggressively questioning on the absence of
injury or a delay in reporting. The victim may become upset and withdraw
cooperation, which in many places may in itself be grounds for considering a
case unfounded. In addition, if investigators have already interviewed
the suspect, who may claim the act was consensual, they may aggressively
question the victim using information from the suspect, leading the victim to
recant. The investigation may stop with the initial interview. This in turn
serves to confirm the investigators’ belief that the victim was lying.
Dr. Kimberly A. Lonsway, Sgt. Joanne Archambault, Dr. Alan Berkowitz, and
EVAWI, “Excerpt from False Reports: Moving Beyond the Issue to
Successfully Investigate and Prosecute Non-Stranger Sexual Assault,”
February 2009.

[441]
Deposition testimony of Detective Sergeant Kevin Steven Rice, October 14, 2008,
p. 221. Another officer testified that, in his opinion, a woman may lie about
being a victim of sexual assault to get a boyfriend in trouble or to get access
to a pregnancy test or the morning after-pill (See, for example, deposition
testimony of Detective Vincent Spriggs, October 23, 2008, p. 239).

[467]
Human Rights Watch notes from review of MPD investigative files, SA11-XXX,
August 23, 2012. Other cases found include SA10-XXX (“The
[complainant’s] name was run through Colombo and NCIC. The complainant
has no warrants.”); SA10-XXX (The [complainant] name was run through
Colombo and NCIC. The [complainant] had no warrants but had been arrested for
unregistered ammunition and leaving scene of accident.”); SA11-XXX;
SA11-XXX.

[477]
Human Rights Watch group interview with advocates, Washington D.C., March 28,
2011. Another observer noted that while a detective took a statement from a
male homeless victim, his partner stood tapping her foot looking off in the
distance, as if the interview was wasting her time. Human Rights Watch
telephone interview with R.W., October 5, 2011.

[480] Email correspondence dated April 6, 2009 from advocate,
forwarded to the Office of Victims Services, and on file with Human Rights
Watch. An additional problem was noted by observers of police handling cases
involving deaf victims. When police sign for themselves and take a statement,
observers have noticed they tend to make mistakes. For example, in one case the
victim said there was no weapon, but the police wrote down there was a weapon.
Also, victims of trauma often sign faster than usual, so interpreters need to
be specifically trained to work with trauma victims. The role of the interpreter
is not sufficiently appreciated. Human Rights Watch interview with K.V.,
Washington, D.C., March 28, 2011.

[494]
Kimberly A. Lonsway et al., “Excerpt: The Role of Victim Advocates in the
Criminal Justice System: Community and System-Based Advocates,” May 2012,
p. 2. Training module currently in development for the OnLine Training
Institute hosted by End Violence Against Women International, http://olti.evawintl.org (accessed January 10, 2013).

[498]
For example, Washington Hospital Center exam exemption reports (forms prepared
for OVS when SANE nurses are called in to perform an exam but then do not do so)
read, “SANE did not get to speak to patient but according to detective,
pt.[patient] asked for ride to boyfriend’s house. 2 known acquaintances
gave her a ride. She fell asleep in car, woke up, 1 man was performing anal sex
on her while the other was forcing her to perform oral sex on him. That was all
the history I received. Reason for exemption: During interview with det. [detective],
patient cursed at det. and ran out of ER.” District of Columbia, Sexual
Assault Nurse Examiners Exemption Report, dated October 8, 2009, on file at
Human Rights Watch; Also “Pt. left before I could speak to him.
Medstar informed me that MPD and DRCC were notified but pt. left after talking
to law enforcement. I spoke with charge RN who confirmed pt. left after
initially asking for kit and MPD then left on own after speaking with
MPD.” District of Columbia, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Exam Exemption
Report, dated May 15, 2010, on file at Human Rights Watch.

[510]
The Violence Against Women Act of 2005, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 3796gg-4(d), specifies
that states and territories may not “require a victim of sexual assault
to participate in the criminal justice system or cooperate with law enforcement
in order to be provided with a forensic medical exam, reimbursed for charges
incurred on account of such an exam, or both.” As of January 5, 2009, all
states must certify that they are in compliance with these requirements in
order to remain eligible for STOP Grant funds from the Office on Violence
Against Women (OVW). See also deposition testimony of Detective Sergeant Kevin
Steven Rice, October 14, 2008, pp. 97-98, 113; deposition testimony of Sergeant
Ronald Reid, September 25, 2008 pp. 96-98, 100-104 (indicating that these
policy changes went into effect at the MPD in 2008).

[515]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview with P.S., March 15, 2011. Others also
note that if there is no rape kit, police say there is no case. Human Rights
Watch interview with Cyndee Clay, March 28, 2011; Human Rights Watch telephone
interview with L.P., March 16, 2011. When reviewing investigative files, Human
Rights Watch noted a September 2011 case in which “The complainant was
asked what her delay in making a report sooner was.” Yet the report was
made the evening after the assault. The case was deemed a misdemeanor despite a
claim of forcible vaginal penetration. Human Rights Watch notes from review of
MPD investigative files, SX11-XXX, August 21, 2011.

[563]
Human Rights Watch notes from review of MPD investigative files, SA09-XXX,
August 23, 2012. The notes go on to say that when the “detective tried to
get detailed information, the complainant would add more to her story the
second time.” However, notes indicate the complainant was unable to focus,
falling asleep and slurring her speech, while being asked repeatedly details of
her story.

[576]
Metropolitan Police Department, General Order, “Adult Sexual Assault
Investigations,” Series 304, Number 06, effective date August 25, 2011,
p. 12. The 2006 policy also indicated the detective shall “schedule a
follow up interview with the victim at the SAU’s office,” but did
not indicate a time frame. It also referenced the SAU detective on-scene
“conducting an interview with the victim to obtain additional facts, and
to make proper notifications.”

[577]
Human Rights Watch interview with Commander George Kucik, Lieutenant Pamela
Burkett-Jones, Sergeant Keith Ronald Reed, and Tyria Fields, program manager
for Victim Services, Washington, D.C., May 30, 2012. The letter from the chief
of police to Human Rights Watch, dated June 8, 2012, also references the quiet
room as established to ensure victims are interviewed in a quiet, private
location.

[582]
In Susan D.’s file, the detective’s notes from the interview
consist almost entirely of an account of the consensual part of Susan’s
date with the suspect. There is no mention of the signs of trauma she was
showing at the time of the interview. Nor is there an indication that Susan
physically resisted the assault, was pinned down, felt threatened by some of
the language used by the suspect, and felt intimidated because the suspect was
much larger than she was. Furthermore, Susan explained that the consensual
sexual activity was undertaken as an effort to avoid rape, but that context was
not included anywhere in the file reviewed by Human Rights Watch. Although the
detective’s notes say that she went over her statement with Susan
“to ask if it was accurate and she said yes,” Susan flatly denies
that. In a letter to Chief Lanier, she wrote, “I have also not been
allowed to review Detective [--]’s notes from my interview, during which
I don’t believe she understood what I was saying and consequently was not
writing complete notes.” Letter from Susan D. to Chief Cathy Lanier, May
3, 2012, on file at Human Rights Watch; Human Rights Watch notes from review of
MPD investigative files, SA11-XXX, August 21, 2012.

[635]
Human Rights Watch interview with university staff L.O., Washington D.C., March
28, 2011. Also in contrast, Sheri P. (pseudonym) was assaulted in North
Carolina in 1988. The detective assigned to her case was so concerned about
storing her evidence properly that he brought the forensic evidence kit home
and put it in his refrigerator. It meant so much to her that he believed her.
She described it as the only thing that made the situation bearable. Human
Rights Watch group interview with sexual assault survivors (including with
Sheri P.), Washington D.C., September 30, 2011.

[641]
Although prior to June 2012, one person in Victim Services was primarily
responsible for sexual assault cases, other members of the unit were available
to assist her as needed. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Tyria
Fields, September 19, 2012.

[646]
One, a “Handbook for Victims of Sexual Assault,” was written in
July 2001. While it contains helpful information about sexual assaults and
myths about sexual assault, it is outdated. It sends victims to the Howard
University Hospital, which has not been staffed to provide forensic exams since
2008. D.C. Rape Crisis Center, “Sexual Assault: A Handbook for
Victims,” July 2001. Another similar pamphlet is undated, but it also
refers victims to Howard University Hospital. See D.C. Rape Crisis Center,
“If you’ve been raped … what to expect, where to turn, what
you can do.” A third document is a one-page flyer that emphasizes
prevention measures against stranger assaults with tips such as making sure all
doors and windows have sturdy locks and “avoiding walking or
jogging alone, especially at night.” It advises readers to
“use a whistle to alert others if you are threatened.” Though it is
dated January 2011, it still refers victims to the Howard University Hospital
for treatment. This document also appears on the MPD website. See http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,a,1237,q,547802,mpdcNav_GID,1551.asp
(accessed April 26, 2012). The final document is a pamphlet prepared by the
Victim Witness Assistance Unit of the US Department of Justice. It is not clear
whether or how the handbooks are distributed to victims.

[655]
Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Y.L., May 26, 2011 and September
30, 2011; with medical staff P.R., May 10, 2011; and with R.T., May 26, 2011. Research
shows that trauma decreases a person’s ability to provide information
that is complete, consistent, and 100 percent accurate. Trauma can also cause
loss of cognitive and motor skills, meaning that a person may not be able to
concentrate or may behave irrationally. Other research indicates that because
of the short-term impairment caused by trauma, the ability to recall might
actually increase later. EVAWI, “Interviewing the Victim,” May
2007, p. 21; Louise Ellison, “Closing the credibility gap: The
prosecutorial use of expert testimony in sexual assault cases,” The
International Journal of Evidence & Proof, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 243-44.

[657]
Human Rights Watch interview with two city government officials, October 3,
2011, Washington, D.C.; and SART Meeting Minutes, Thursday June 16, 2011, on
file at Human Rights Watch (mentioning a request from the head of the Sexual
Assault Unit for “additional training/information on progressive disclosures,
trauma impact on memory.”).

[667]
Washington D.C. was one of eight US cites selected to take part in the
“Making a Difference” project, designed to improve handling of
sexual assault cases, and participated in the project from 2003 to 2005. As
part of the project, the city reportedly initiated a four-hour training of
first responders on sexual assault in collaboration with the D.C. Rape Crisis
Center and the SANE program. In addition, the US attorney’s office was to
provide one hour of training to all detectives on sexual abuse, domestic
violence, and crimes against children. EVAWI, Making a Difference Project,
Reform Efforts, Washington D.C., www.evawintl.org/mad.aspx?subpage=4 (accessed
January 10, 2013). However, the MPD said it could not locate any records in
response to our request for information on training materials received or
generated as part of this project. Nor was any material included in its
response to our request for all training on sexual assault. The sergeant in
charge of the unit who attended the conference does not recall any changes made
to the SAU’s practices as a result of that project, so any changes may
have been short lived. Deposition testimony of Detective Sergeant Kevin Steven
Rice, October 14, 2008, pp. 290-291.

[671]
Deposition testimony in 2008 indicates that this course is for new detectives
and devotes about an hour and a half to sex crimes. Deposition Testimony of
Sergeant Kevin Steven Rice, October 14, 2008, p. 19.

[675]
Deposition testimony of Sergeant Ronald Reid, September 25, 2008, pp. 23-25,
27; deposition testimony of Detective Sergeant Kevin Steven Rice, October 14,
2008 p. 17-18, 92. Deposition testimony indicates there was one video prepared
for first responders on how to interact with sexual assault victims, but it is
not clear that it has been shown and it was not produced in response to our
request for training materials. It was not shown between 2005 and October 2008.
Deposition testimony of Detective Sergeant Kevin Steven Rice, October 14, 2008
pp. 46-48, 92-93; deposition testimony of Officer Tandreia Green, May 8, 2008,
pp. 24, 46.

[681]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview with medical staff I.L., December 7,
2011; Human Rights Watch interview with medical staff P.R., Washington D.C.,
March 2, 2011. The former SANE director, Devin Trinkley, offered to create an
online training program for officers and SAU detectives, but MPD would not
return her calls and the program was not implemented. Human Rights Watch
telephone interview with Devin Trinkley, July 19, 2012.

[688]
The US Department of Justice similarly recommends training on cultural
sensitivity for forensic nurse examiners. See US Department of Justice, Office
on Violence Against Women, “National Training Standards for Sexual
Assault Medical Forensic Examiners,” June 2006, https://ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ovw/213827.pdf
(accessed November 19, 2012).

[689]
Grand Rapids, Austin, Kansas City, and Washington, D.C were among eight US cities
involved in the Making a Difference (MAD) Project, an initiative in which
multidisciplinary teams from each city worked together to establish new
national standards for effectively investigating and prosecuting sexual
assault. The project was implemented and supported by End Violence
Against Women International (EVAWI).

[697]
David Lisak et al., “False Allegations of Sexual Assault: An Analysis of
Ten Years of Reported Cases,” Violence Against Women, December 16,
2010, pp. 1318-34 (finding a false report rate of 5.9 percent over a 10 year
study of reported sexual assaults at a major northeastern university).

[711]
For these reasons, Austin detectives try to give sexual assault victims 48
hours before follow-up questioning. Kansas City detectives conduct one
preliminary interview at the hospital and a longer and more detailed interview
at another location later. Human Rights Watch group interview with Kansas City
SART, July 22, 2011.

[713]
Human Rights Watch group interview with Kansas City SART, July 22, 2011. The
SANE nurse in Austin similarly emphasized that she makes a point of thanking
victims who come in and telling them how courageous they are. Human Rights
Watch interview with Jenny Black,coordinator, Austin/Travis County Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners,
Austin, Texas, December 14, 2011.

[720]
Folder of information provided by Austin Police Department, on file at Human
Rights Watch (folder contains a case information sheet—with a case number
and contact information for the detective, victim services counselor, and D.A.’s
victim witness assistance—an explanation of the criminal justice process,
a sheet explaining the rights of victims, an explanation of access to court
information, an application for financial compensation from the state for
victims of violent crimes, health care information, information on emotional
care for sexual assault survivors, information for family and friends on how to
help and support a sexual assault survivor, referrals for counseling programs,
a pseudonym form, and information about the Victims Services Unit and the
Austin Police Department).

[747]
EVAWI, “Clearance Methods for Sexual Assault Cases,” p. 18; EVAWI,
“Reporting Methods for Sexual Assault Cases,” pp. 6-7. Incident
reports may be appropriate where the victim makes a report that does not meet
the elements of a sexual offense; for example if a person felt pressured into
having sexual contact with another person but the pressure did not rise to the
level of a forcible sexual assault. However, some form of report must be
created and reviewed. There must also be the ability to re-categorize the case
if more information becomes available or if the victim decides to cooperate
after initially not be able to participate in the investigation. EVAWI,
“Clearance Methods for Sexual Assault Cases,” pp. 18-19.

[749]
Under the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system, cases may be cleared by
arrest (where the suspect has been taken into custody, charged, and handed to
the court for prosecution), exceptionally cleared (when the case cannot be
charged though the offender is identified, at a known location, and there is
enough evidence to support the case, but the offender is in another
jurisdiction or deceased or the victim is unable to participate in the
investigation), or unfounded (if an investigation shows no offense occurred or
was attempted).

[750]
John Timoney, “Fixing Policies Was Just the First Step; We also Had to
Restore the Department’s Credibility,” Subject to Debate: A
Newsletter of the Police Executive Research Forum, vol. 25, no. 5,
September/October 2011,
http://www.policeforum.org/library/subject-to-debate-archives/2011/Debate_Sep-Oct2011_web.pdf
(accessed May 16, 2012).

[752]
In cases where the victim does not recall if he or she was assaulted, a rape
kit is done, and if the lab results are positive and the victim says it was
non-consensual, the case is reclassified as a rape. Human Rights Watch
interview with Captain John Darby and Commissioner Charles Ramsey, November 1,
2011.

[764]The US Constitution states, “[A]ll treaties made,
or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the
Supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby,
anything in the Constitution or Law of any State to the contrary
notwithstanding.” US Constitution, article VI, clause 2. Upholding this
constitutional principle, the US Supreme Court has stated, “[I]nternational
law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts
of justice of the appropriate jurisdiction…” The Paquete-Habana,
175 U.S. 677, 700 (1900). Treaties of the United States have been held to be
binding on states independent of the will and power of state legislatures. See Asakura
v. City of Seattle, 265 U.S. 332 at 341 (1924) (holding that a treaty made
under the authority of the United States stands on the same footing of
supremacy as do the provisions of the Constitution and laws of the United
States and “operate[s] of itself without the aid of any legislation,
state or national; and it will be applied and given authoritative effect by the
courts”).

[770]American Declaration
of the Rights and Duties of Man, O.A.S. Res. XXX, adopted by the Ninth
International Conference of American States (1948). In relation to US
obligations to act with due diligence to prevent, investigate, sanction, and
offer remedies in cases of violence against women perpetrated by private actors,
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Jessica Lenahan
(Gonzales) et al. (United States), Report No. 80/11, Case 12.626, July 21,
2011, paras. 101-36. In this case, the Commission found that the US government,
through the actions and omissions of its state agents in Colorado, failed to
act with due diligence to protect three victims from domestic violence, in
violation of obligations not to discriminate and to provide for equal
protection before the law, and that the government also violated the right to
judicial protection. See also in general for legal obligations on states to
investigate sexual assaults with due diligence: IACHR, “Access to Justice
for Women Victims of Sexual Violence in the Americas,” OEA/Ser.L/V/II,
Doc. 68, January 20, 2007, pp. 10-48; IACHR, “Access to Justice for Women
Victims of Sexual Violence in Mesoamerica,” OEA/Ser.L/V/II. Doc. 63,
December 9, 2011, pp. 5-14.

[774]
The Inter-American Commission (IACHR), established by the American Declaration
on the Rights and Duties of Man, co-exists with the Inter-American Court on
Human Rights (IACtHR) and considers complaints about violations of the
Declaration and the American Convention on Human Rights before they are
referred to the court. See IACHR, Jessica
Lenahan (Gonzales) et al. (United States), para. 173.

[776]
See for example, UN General Assembly, Declaration on the Elimination of
Violence against Women, December 20, 1993, G.A. res. 48/104, 48 U.N. GAOR Supp.
(no. 49) at 217, U.N. Doc. A/48/49 (1993) (“Affirming that violence
against women constitutes a violation of the rights and fundamental freedoms of
women and impairs or nullifies their enjoyment of those rights and freedoms.”);
See also UN General Assembly, Resolution 64/137, “Intensification of
efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women,” A/RES/64/137,
February 11, 2010 (“Stressing that States have the obligation to promote
and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, including women
and girls, and must exercise due diligence to prevent and investigate acts of
violence against women and girls and punish the perpetrators, to eliminate
impunity and to provide protection for victims, and that failure to do so
violates and impairs or nullifies the enjoyment of their human rights and
fundamental freedoms.”).

[777]
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW), adopted December 18, 1979, G.A. res. 34/180, 34 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No.
46) at 193, U.N. Doc. A/34/46, entered into force September 3, 1981. The United
States signed CEDAW in 1980 but has not ratified.

[779]
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, adopted May 23, 1969, entered into
force January 27, 1980, art. 18.

[780]
IACHR, Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) et al.
(United States), paras. 110-111; UN General Assembly, Declaration
on the Elimination of Violence against Women, art. 4(c)(urging States to
“exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and, in accordance with
national legislation, punish acts of violence against women, whether those acts
are perpetrated by the state or against private persons.”).

[782]
IACHR, “The situation of the rights of women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico:
the right to be free from violence and discrimination,”
(“Cuidad-Juarez”), Inter-Am.C.H.R., OEA/Ser.L/V/II.117, Doc. 44
(2003), paras. 99-100.

[784]
UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General
Recommendation 19, Violence Against Women, UN Doc. A/47/38 (1992) (“States
may also be responsible for private acts if they fail to act with due diligence
to prevent violations of rights or to investigate and punish acts of violence, and
for providing compensation.”); UN General Assembly, Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women (States should “exercise due
diligence to prevent, investigate and, in accordance with national legislation,
punish acts of violence against women, whether those acts are perpetrated by
the State or by private persons.”).

[785]
UN Commission on Human Rights, Preliminary Report Submitted by the Special
Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, E/CN.4/1995/42,
November 22, 1994, para. 72.

[786]
See, for example, UN Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Special
Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Yakin
Erturk, E/CN.4/2006/61, January 20, 2006, paras. 19-29 (concluding that
customary law requires states to prevent and respond to acts of violence with
due diligence); See above, UN Human Rights Council, “Accelerating efforts
to eliminate all forms of violence against women: ensuring due diligence in
prevention,” A/HRC/14/L.9/Rev.I, June 16, 2010; UN Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women, A.T. v. Hungary,
Communication No. 2/2003, January 26, 2005; IACHR, Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) et al. (United States),
paras. 122-124; IACtHR, Velasquez Rodriguez Case, para. 172.

[787]
For the Court’s repeated findings on the obligation to investigate, see,
among others, Jordan v. the United Kingdom, no. 24746/94, Judgment of
May 4, 2001; Isayeva v. Russia, no. 57950/00, Judgment of February 24,
2005; and Adali v. Turkey, no. 38187/97, Judgment of March 31, 2005.